Food for rainforest birds

Sparingly branched tree to 30 metres high, glabrescent (smooth, shiny). Leaves usually bipinnate (except for some on flowering shoots only pinnate and with 5-9 leaflets), up to 100 cm long, secondary rachises to 12 cm long; petiole circular in cross section; leaflets with branched hairs when young, ovate to elliptic, mostly 5-12 cm long, mostly 3-6.5 cm wide, apex acuminate, base more or less rounded, margins entire; aromatic (smells a bit like celery) when crushed. Flowering parts a terminal panicle, branching 1-3 times, flowers solitary arranged along inflorescence branches. Calyx an undulate rim. Petals purple-black. Fruit globose, 5-6 mm long, purple-black when ripe. Also called Silver Basswood and Black Pencil Cedar. Host plant for larvae of Dark Pencilled-blue Candalides consimilis butterfly.

Photo: Robert Whyte

Seed collecting and propagation

Fruit globose, 5-6 mm long, purple-black when ripe in March to June. There is a high proportion of infertile seed. Fresh, mature fleshy fruits should be collected, the flesh removed and seed rinsed. Final germination may not occur for up to eight months. Seed collected from Pied Currawong pellets germinate well. Cuttings do not strike readily.

Celerywood in fruit. Photo: Poyt448 Peter Woodard CC0 1.0