Acronychia acronychioides, commonly known as white aspen,[1] is a species of small to medium-sized rainforest tree that is endemic to north-eastern Queensland. It has trifoliate leaves with elliptic to egg-shaped leaflets on stems that are more or less cylindrical, creamy yellow flowers in large groups in leaf axils and fleshy, pear-shaped or spherical fruit.
Acronychia acronychioides is a tree that typically grows to a height of and has more or less cylindrical stems. The leaves are usually trifoliate on a petiole long. The leaflets are elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiolule up to long. The flowers are arranged in large groups long in leaf axils, each flower on a pedicel long. The four sepals are wide, the four petals long and the eight stamens alternate in length. Flowering occurs from April to May and the fruit is a fleshy, pear-shaped to spherical drupe long.[2]
White aspen was first formally described in 1864 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Euodia acronychioides and published the description in Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae.[3] [4] In 1974, Thomas Gordon Hartley changed the name to Acronychia acronychioides in the Journal of the Arnold Arboretum.[5] [6]
This tree grows as an understorey tree in well-developed rainforest between the Kutini-Payamu (Iron Range) National Park in Cape York Peninsula to the Eungella Range in central eastern Queensland, at altitudes from sea level .
White aspen is classified as least concern under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.[7]