Saturday, February 14, 2009

Deep Yellowwood now in Fruit

Rhodosphaera rhodanthema
Family: ANACARDIACEAE
Our local deep yellowwoods are fruiting particularly well, this year. What beautiful trees they are, with their bunches of long-lasting nut-brown fruits against the canopy of dark green leaves.
If you want to try growing these seeds for yourself, you’ll need to “scarify” them. Otherwise they are slow to germinate because they have to wait for their own hard seed-coating to decay before they can get through it.
"Cut off the end with side-cutters", I was advised. I found it was more a case of gnawing away carefully with said implement, (on the end opposite the stalk) until I could glimpse the waxy grey kernel inside.
These are fast-growing trees, producing a respectable little shade tree in four years.


See my article from June 2008 for more details, and photos of the showy flowers.

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