Cupaniopsis tomentella
Cupaniopsis tomentella, commonly known as Boonah tuckeroo, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry family and is endemic to south-eastern Queensland. It is a tree with paripinnate leaves with usually 6 to 8 elliptic or oblong leaflets, and separate male and female flowers arranged in a panicle, the fruit an orange-yellow capsule with a red flush.
Description
Cupaniopsis tomentella is a tree that typically grows to a height of up to, its young branchlets with woolly hairs, the branchlets with lenticels. The leaves are paripinnate with usually six to eight elliptic or oblong leaflets long and wide on a petiole long, the leaf rhachis long. The flowers are arranged in panicles long, each flower on a pedicel long. The sepals lobes are hairy, long and the petals are white, about long. The fruit is a hairy, elliptic, orange-yellow sessile capsule, flushed with red, long wide, the seed with a yellow aril.
Taxonomy
This species was first formally described in 1863 by George Bentham from an unpublished description by Ferdinand von Mueller. Bentham gave it the name Cupania tomentella from specimens collected by Walter Hill near Moreton Bay. In 1984, Sally T. Reynolds transferred the species to Cupaniopsis as C. tomentella in the journal Austrobaileya. The specific epithet means 'minutely tomentose'.
Boonah tuckeroo occurs between Boonah and Ipswich in south-east Queensland, usually in dry scrubs.
This species of Cupaniopsis is listed as "vulnerable" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992. The main threats to the species are its fragmented distribution and smothering exotic vines.