Cupaniopsis simulata, commonly known as northern tuckeroo,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry family and is endemic to eastern Queensland. It is a rainforest tree with paripinnate leaves with 4 to 12 elliptic leaflets, and separate male and female flowers arranged in a thyrse, the fruit a brownish orange capsule.
Cupaniopsis simulata is a tall, straight tree that typically grows to a height of up to . The bark is furrowed, greyish-brown with lighter blotches and its new growth is reddish, the stems hairy at first, later glabrous. The leaves are paripinnate with 4 to 12 elliptic leaflets long and wide on a petiole long, the leaf rhachis long. The leaflets are pale green, more or less shiny and glabrous. The flowers are arranged in thyrses or panicles long, the individual flowers white to yellow or green, up to in diameter on a pedicel long. The (usually) five sepals lobes are elliptic or more or less round, long and wide and the 5 petals are broadly egg-shaped, up to long and wide and hairy on the outside. The fruit is an oval, brownish orange capsule long and long with three lobes, each lobe with a black seed with an orange or red aril almost covering the seed. [2] [3]
Cupaniopsis simulata was first formally described in 1991 by Sally T. Reynolds in the journal Austrobaileya from specimens collected near Fairlies Knob in 1990.[4] The specific epithet (simulata) means 'resembling' or 'imitating', referring to its similarity to C. anacardioides and C. dallachyi.
Northern tuckeroo grows in araucarian rainforest at altitudes from between central eastern and south-eastern Queensland.
This species of Cupaniopsis is listed as of "least concern" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.[5]