Drypetes deplanchei

Location & distribution maps

Phylogeny & links to associated information:

Wikipedia links:       Angiosperms > Eudicots > Rosids  > Malpighiales > Putranjivaceae > Drypetes deplanchei

Other links:      

Plant  information

Common name:               Yellow Tulip  

• Also grey boxwood, white myrtle, grey bark and yellow tulipwood

Conservation status:   unknown

Etymology:   

• The genus is derived from the Greek, dryppa meaning "olive fruit"

• The species named after Dr. Emile Deplanche, who collected this plant in New Caledonia

Flowers:                  

• Yellow brown flowers form in November, from the forks of the leaves

• Male and female flowers on separate trees

• Individual flowers around 4 mm in diameter

• Male flowers in axillary racemes with a perianth around 2 mm long, with 5 to 10 stamens

• Female flowers solitary or in clusters of 3 or 4

Fruit:                         

• The fruit is a bright red drupe. 12 to 20 mm long with moist yellow flesh inside

• The single seed is about 12 mm long, oval in shape with a groove on one side

• Fruit mature from February to April

• Eaten by the emerald dove, topknot pigeon and wompoo fruit dove

• Germination from seed is slow

Leaves:         

• Elliptical, ovate to ovate-oblong in shape, 4 to 9 cm long, 1 to 5 cm wide

• Wavy edged, stiff, thick

• Margins toothed, without teeth or with scalloped margins

• Leaves abruptly tapered at the base, with a leaf tip or rounded at the end

• Hairless and glossy green, somewhat paler green underneath

• Leaf stems 3 to 6 mm long

• Juvenile leaves prominently toothed

• Leaf veins easily noticed, raised on both sides of the leaf

• Five to seven lateral veins, at around 65 degrees to the midrib

Stem & branches:    

• The tree is often flanged at the butt and lower part of the trunk

• Grey or brown bark, often with scales of bark which fall, leaving shallow depressions

• This results in a mottled appearance, similar to the tulipwood

• Bark scaly and pustular on older trees. Small branches smooth, slender, grey in colour

•  Dotted with many lenticels

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A small to medium-sized tree, up to 25 metres tall and a stem width of 60 cm

Habitat:   

Distribution:                  

• A tree of eastern and northern Australia.

• It also occurs in New Caledonia and Lord Howe Island

• Occurring as far south as the Hunter River, NSW, north to Torres Strait across the Top End of the Northern Territory and The Kimberley in Western Australia

• The subspecies affinis is endemic to Lord Howe Island

• The habitat varies, but it is often found in monsoon forest, drier rainforest, as well as littoral rainforest, and rainforest by streams

Additional notes:     

• Uses

  • Previously used as bullock whip handles, in the Richmond River district, northern NSW

  • Indigenous Australians ate the fruit raw, and used leaves in cooking, as well as carving the wood

  • Early settlers on Lord Howe Island used the timber for sea piles because the sap repels marine worms

• Ecology

  • A food source for a variety of insects

  • Such as the common albatross butterfly

  • Possibly also a food source for the critically endangered Lord Howe Island stick insect

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drypetes_deplanchei (2023)