Acronychia aberrans, commonly known as acid berry, lemon aspen, plasticine tree or plasticene aspen,[1] is a species of medium-sized rainforest tree that is endemic to north-eastern Queensland. It has simple leaves on stems that are more or less square in cross-section, flowers in small groups in leaf axils and fleshy, more or less spherical fruit.
Acronychia aberrans is a tree that typically grows to a height of . Its leafy stems are more or less square in cross-section, giving the appearance of having been squeezed like plasticine. The leaves are simple, elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged in small groups long in leaf axils, each flower on a pedicel long. The sepals are about wide, the four petals long and the eight stamens alternate in length. Flowering occurs from February to April and the fruit is a fleshy, more or less spherical or pear-shaped drupe long.[2] [3]
Acronychia aberrans was first formally described in 1974 by Thomas Gordon Hartley in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum from specimens collected by Bernard Hyland on the Atherton Tableland.[4] The specific epithet is a reference to the unusual shape of the branchlets.[5]
This tree grows in rainforest between the Mount Spurgeon National Park and the Atherton Tableland, at altitudes from .
Acid berry is classified as of "least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.