Brown bollywood
Litsea leefeana, Fam. Lauraceae
Small to medium tree, brown bark with scattered red brown pimples, often scaly with shallow depressions in older specimens. Often buttressed in large individuals. Young shoots brown and hairy.
| Weed Category: | |
| Weed: | No |
| Form or habit: | Small tree, Med tree |
| Family: | Lauraceae |
| Leaf: | Simple, alternate, spirally arranged, entire, lanceolate, elliptic or oblong, 5-20.5 x 2.5-9.5cm, penninerved. Glabrous except along midrib. Glossy green above and dull and paler green below with rusty hairs along the veins. Young growth rusty hairy below. Domatia absent. Oil dots minute, petiole 6-21mm long. |
| Flower conspicuous: | |
| Flower colour: |
Yellow, Cream, Green |
| Flower description: | Axillary clusters of small, creamy green or yellow dioecious flowers or clusters at leaf scars. Sometime strongly fragrant. December to July. |
| Fruit conspicuous: | Conspicuous |
| Fruit colour: |
Black, Red |
| Fruit: | |
| Fruit description: | Ellipsoid drupes, 12-22.5 x 10-15mm, seated in a small cup. Black when ripe but red when immature. August to December. |
| Habitat: | Littoral rainforest, rainforest. |
| Distribution | Queensland, Northern Territory, Asia. |
| Food source for: | Fruit eaten by the southern cassowary, rose crowned, superb and wompoo fruit doves, and topknot, whit headed and pied imperial pigeons, common koel, figbird, green and spotted catbirds, golden, satin and tooth billed bowerbirds and metallic starling. Flowers and fruit eaten by the lemuroid ringtail possum and green ringtail possum, respectively. Larval food plant of the bronze flat, blue triangle, eastern dusk flat, purple dusk flat and bicolour moonbeam butterflies. |
| Toxicity: | No toxicity known |
| Origin: | Australia, Asia. |
| Notes: | Grow from fresh seed, soak the seed to enable flesh to be removed prior to sowing, germinates in 28 to 70 days. Timber is susceptible to borer. |
| Information sources: | Melzer R. & Plumb J. (2007) Plants of Capricornia. |
