Neolitsea dealbata

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         White Bolly Gum

• Also, hairy-leaved bolly gum, or simply bolly gum (amongst others)

Conservation status: . . .

Etymology:   

• The genus name Neolitsea is a combination of the Ancient Greek word néos (meaning "new") and the pre-existing genus name Litsea

• The members of Neolitsea were mostly transferred from Litsea

• Greek neos, new; Litsea, from the Mandarin characters li; plum, and tse, little

• The species epithet dealbata is Latin for "whitewashed", and refers to the white undersides of the leaves

Flowers:

• The inflorescence is an umbel produced in the leaf axils or directly from the twigs

• There are up to five flowers per umbel, cream, yellow or pale brown in colour, and measuring from 2 to 8 cm  long

• The female flowers are about half as long as male ones

Fruit:                            

• The globose (roughly spherical) fruit is a drupe up to 11 mm in diameter

• Green when immature and dark red to black when ripe

• They contain a single seed

Leaves:         

• The leaves are generally elliptic but may be obovate or lanceolate

• New growth is also covered in brown hairs

• They measure between 7 and 22 cm long by 3 and 8 cm wide

• The upper surface is glossy green, the underside is whitish or glaucous

Stem & branches: 

• The trunk can reach 30 cm diameter and may be buttressed

• The twigs are densely covered in fine brown hairs on the younger parts and are terete (circular in cross-section

Roots:         

Habit:        

• An evergreen tree growing up to 15 m high

Habitat:   

• It is an understory species found in rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest on a variety of soil types

• At altitudes from sea level to 1,150 m 

Distribution:     

• The bolly gum has a wide distribution on the coast and adjacent tablelands of eastern Australia

• Stretching from islands of the Torres Strait south to the Illawarra region south of Sydney

Additional notes:   

• Taxonomy

  • This species has been given several names since it was first described in 1810 by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown, who originally called it Tetranthera dealbata

  • Later, the genus Tetranthera was subsumed by Litsea Lam., and the German botanist Nees von Esenbeck published a new name for the species - Litsea dealbata - in 1836

  • In 1838 Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, a French polymath, again revised T. dealbata in his book Sylva telluriana and gave it the new combination Bryantea dealbata

  • Rafinesque's work, despite being a validly published name, was largely ignored by his contemporaries and in 1948 the American botanist Elmer Drew Merrill published a new combination that is still accepted, i.e. Neolitsea dealbata

• Vernacular names

• Many common names have been used for this plant, including those in the following list. Other variations exist which are minor differences between, for example, "bollygum" and "bolly gum", etc.[1][6][5]

• 
  

• black ash

• bolly gum

• grey bollywood

• native mulberry

• pigeon-berry tree

• white bollywood

• white bollygum

• velvet-leaf bollywood

• hairy-leaved bollygum

• 
  
• 
  

• Ecology

• This plant is a host species for larvae of the moths Acrocercops ordinatella and Gibbovalva quadrifasciata, as well as the blue triangle butterfly (Graphium sarpedon).[15] Cassowaries (Casuarius casuarius) and fruit doves (genus Ptilinopus) are known to eat the fruit of these trees, and it’s likely that many other frugivorous birds do so as well.[6] The fungus Phyllachora queenslandica is found on Neolitsea dealbata

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolitsea_australiensis (2024)