Melicope xanthoxyloides


Melicope xanthoxyloides is a species of small tree in the family Rutaceae and is native to New Guinea and Queensland. It has trifoliate leaves and small green to yellow or cream-coloured flowers arranged in panicles in leaf axils.

Description

Melicope xanthoxyloides is a tree that typically grows to a height of and has a trunk usually no more than dbh. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs and trifoliate on a petiole long. The leaflets are sessile or on a petiolule up to long and are elliptical to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide. The flowers are arranged in panicles long in leaf axils and are male-only and female-only on separate plants. The sepals are egg-shaped to triangular, about long and fused at the base, the petals green to yellow or cream-coloured, long and there are four stamens. Flowering occurs from November to April and the fruit consists of up to four follicles long and fused at the base.

Taxonomy

Melicope xanthoxyloides was first formally described in 1864 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Euodia xanthoxyloides and published the description in Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae from specimens collected near Rockingham Bay by John Dallachy. In 2001, Thomas Gordon Hartley changed the name to Melicope xanthoxyloides in the journal Allertonia.

Distribution and habitat

Yellow evodia grows in rainforest from near sea level to an altitude of. It occurs in New Guinea including in the Bismarck Archipelago and from the McIlwraith Range on Cape York Peninsula to the Herbert River in northern Queensland.

Conservation status

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