Polyscias elegans

Quality 0.50 · 3 views · Updated 2 months ago

Species of tree

title: "Polyscias elegans" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["polyscias", "apiales-of-australia", "trees-of-australia", "flora-of-new-south-wales", "flora-of-queensland", "plants-described-in-1894", "taxa-named-by-ferdinand-von-mueller", "taxa-named-by-charles-moore"] description: "Species of tree" topic_path: "geography/australia" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyscias_elegans" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Species of tree ::

| image = Polyscias elegans Wyrrabalong National Park.JPG | image_caption =Polyscias elegans at Wyrrabalong National Park, Australia | genus = Polyscias | species = elegans | authority = (C.Moore & F.Muell.) Harms | synonyms =

  • Panax elegans C.Moore & F.Muell.
  • Tieghemopanax elegans (C. Moore & F. Muell.) R.Viguier. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Polyscias_elegans_Norah_Head.jpg" caption="''Polyscias elegans'' at [[Norah Head]], [[Australia"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Polyscias_elegans00.jpg" caption="Drawing by [[Margaret Flockton"] ::

Polyscias elegans, known as the celery wood, is a rainforest tree of eastern Australia. It occurs in a variety of different rainforest types, from fertile basaltic soils, to sand dunes and less fertile sedimentary soils. The range of natural distribution is from Jervis Bay (35° S) in southern New South Wales to Thursday Island (10° S), north of the Australian continent. Other common names include black pencil cedar and silver basswood. Polyscias elegans is useful to bush regenerators as a nursery tree, which provides shade for longer-lived young trees underneath. Polyscias elegans is also known as Celery wood, Mowbulan whitewood, Silver basswood and White sycamore.

Description

It is a fast-growing medium-sized tree with an attractive palm-like or umbrella-shaped crown. Up to 30 meters tall and a trunk diameter of 75 cm. The trunk is mostly straight, unbuttressed and cylindrical, smooth-barked on young trees but fissured, scaly and rough-barked on larger trees.

Leaves are large, pinnate or bi-pinnate with almost opposite leaflets, often in threes. Leaflets ovate in shape, with a point, 5 to 13 cm long. Leaf veins noticeable on both sides, net veins visible below.

Purple flowers form on a terminal panicle, arranged in a series of racemes in the months of February to April. However, flowers can form at other times. The fruit is a drupe; brown or purplish black in colour, 5 to 7 mm wide. Inside the drupe are two cells, containing one seed each, 5 mm long. Seed is fertile for regeneration from the droppings of the pied currawong.

The fruit is eaten by a large variety of birds, including brown cuckoo dove, Australasian figbird, green catbird, Lewin's honeyeater, olive-backed oriole, pied currawong, paradise riflebird, rose crowned fruit dove, silvereye, superb fruit dove, topknot pigeon and wompoo fruit dove.

References

References

  1. Harms Nat. Pflanzenfam. 3(8): 45 1894
  2. {{APNI
  3. C. Moore & F. Muell. Trans. Philos. Inst. Victoria 2: 68 1858
  4. R. Vig. Bull. Soc. Bot. France 52: 308 1905
  5. http://www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au/Sorting/Polyscias.html Sorting Polyscias names

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

polysciasapiales-of-australiatrees-of-australiaflora-of-new-south-walesflora-of-queenslandplants-described-in-1894taxa-named-by-ferdinand-von-muellertaxa-named-by-charles-moore