Bosistoa floydii


Bosistoa floydii, commonly known as the five-leaf bosistoa or five-leaved bonewood, is a species of small rainforest tree that is endemic to north-eastern New South Wales. It has pinnate leaves usually with five elliptic leaflets, and panicles of tiny, creamy white flowers.

Description

Bosistoa floydii grows as a small tree that may reach high and has a spreading crown. The trunk is buttressed and can reach a diameter of, and the bark is grey. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs on thick green or fawn branches and are pinnate, long on a petiole long. There are three to seven, usually five glossy elliptical leaflets, each long and wide on a petiolule long. The leaflets have prominent oli glands and a pointed tip. Appearing in October and November, the tiny flowers are arranged in panicles up to long. Each flower has five hairy sepals about long and five oval, white or creamy white petals long. Flowering is followed by one, or rarely two small, warty, woody, yellow-brown fruit that ripen in February.

Taxonomy

Bosistoa floydii was first described in 1977 by Thomas Gordon Hartley who published the description in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum. The generic name Bosistoa honours the name of Joseph Bosisto, a manufacturer of essential oils. The specific epithet floydii honours the eminent Australian rainforest botanist Alexander Floyd.

Distribution and habitat

Five-leaf bosistoa is restricted to subtropical rainforest in the Bellinger and Orara River areas in north-estern New South Wales, where it grows on basalt or rich alluvial soils.