Medicosma fareana


Medicosma fareana, commonly known as white aspen, is a species of rainforest small tree in the family Rutaceae and is endemic to north Queensland. It has elliptical leaves and white or cream-coloured flowers borne singly or in small groups in leaf axils.

Description

Medicosma fareana is a tree that typically grows to a height of. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, sometimes in whorls of three, and are elliptical to narrow egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged singly or in small groups up to long, each flower on a pedicel long. The sepals are long and glabrous and the petals are white or cream-coloured, long, glabrous and persisting on the fruit where they increase in size to about long. Flowering occurs in most months and the fruit is a follicle long.

Taxonomy

White aspen was first formally described in 1875 by Ferdinand von Mueller, who gave it the name Euodia fareana and published the description in the Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae from specimens collected near Rockingham Bay by John Dallachy. In 1985 Thomas Gordon Hartley changed the name to Medicosma fareana.

Distribution and habitat

Medicosma fareana grows in rainforest from near Cooktown to Mount Fox in north Queensland.

Conservation status

This species is classified as of "least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.