Drypetes deplanchei is a rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 tree of eastern and northern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It also occurs in New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

 and Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, and about from Norfolk Island. The island is about 11 km long and between 2.8 km and 0.6 km wide with an area of...

. The genus is derived from the Greek, dryppa meaning Olive Fruit. The species named after Dr. Emile Deplanche, who collected this plant at New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

. Common names include Yellow Tulip, Grey Boxwood, White Myrtle, Grey Bark and Yellow Tulipwood.

Distribution and habitat

Occurring as far south as the Hunter River, New South Wales, north to Torres Strait

Torres Strait

The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...

. Also occurring inland at the Bunya Mountains

Bunya Mountains

The Bunya Mountains are a distinctive set of peaks forming an isolated section of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland. The mountain range forms the northern edge of the Darling Downs near Bell and Dalby. The mountains are south of Kingaroy and just to the south west of Nanango...

 in south eastern Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

 and Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

. The habitat varies, but it is often found in drier rainforest in Australia, as well as littoral rainforest, and rainforest by streams.

Description

A small to medium sized tree, up to 25 metres tall and a stem width of 60 cm. The tree is often flanged at the butt and lower part of the trunk. Grey or brown bark, often with scales of bark which fall, leaving shallow depressions. This results in a mottled appearance, similar to the Tulipwood

Harpullia pendula

Harpullia pendula, known as the tulipwood or tulip lancewood is a small to medium sized rainforest tree from Australia. The tree's small size, pleasant form and attractive fruit ensures the popularity of this ornamental tree. The range of natural distribution is from the Bellinger River in northern...

. Bark scaly and pustular on older trees. Small branches smooth, slender, grey in colour. Dotted with many lenticel

Lenticel

A lenticel is an airy aggregation of cells within the structural surfaces of the stems, roots, and other parts of vascular plants. It functions as a pore, providing a medium for the direct exchange of gasses between the internal tissues and atmosphere, thereby bypassing the periderm, which would...

s.

Leaves

Elliptical, ovate to ovate-oblong in shape, 4 to 9 cm long, 1 to 5 cm wide. Wavy edged, stiff, thick. Margins toothed, without teeth or with scalloped margins. Leaves abruptly tapered at the base, with a leaf tip or rounded at the end. Hairless and glossy green, somewhat paler green underneath. Leaf stems 3 to 6 mm long. Juvenile leaves prominently toothed. Leaf veins easily noticed, raised on both sides of the leaf. Five to seven lateral veins, at around 65 degrees to the midrib.

Flowers and fruit

Yellow brown flowers form in November, from the forks of the leaves. Male and female flowers on separate trees. Individual flowers around 4 mm in diameter. Male flowers in axillary raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s with a perianth

Perianth

The term perianth has two similar but separate meanings in botany:* In flowering plants, the perianth are the outer, sterile whorls of a flower...

 around 2 mm long, with 5 to 10 stamens. Female flowers solitary or in clusters of 3 or 4.

The fruit is a bright red drupe

Drupe

In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

. 12 to 20 mm long with moist yellow flesh inside. The single seed is about 12 mm long, oval in shape with a groove on one side. Fruit mature from February to April. Eaten by the Emerald Dove

Emerald Dove

The Common Emerald Dove is a pigeon which is a widespread resident breeding bird in the tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Indian Subcontinent and east through Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, to northern and eastern Australia. The dove is also known by the names of Green Dove and...

, Topknot Pigeon

Topknot Pigeon

The Topknot Pigeon is a pigeon native to Australia. It is also known by the name of "Flock Pigeon".-Description:...

 and Wompoo Fruit Dove. Germination from seed is slow.

Uses

Previously used as bullock whip handles, in the Richmond River district, northern New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

. Indigenous Australians ate the fruit raw, and used leaves in cooking, as well as carving the wood.

Ecology

A food source for a variety of insects. Such as Common Albatross

Appias paulina

The Common Albatross, Christmas Island White or Ceylon Lesser Albatross is a butterfly of the Pieridae family...

. Possibly also a food source for the critically endangered Lord Howe Island Stick Insect