Alice Springs Flora •
Alice Springs FloraAlice Springs Flora Index Acacia ligulata Annual Yellowtop Apple Bush Bougainvillea Burdekin Plum Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqa) Cattle Bush Desert Cotton (Aerva javanica) Desert Oak Eremophila Wildberry Feijoa sellowiana Flannel Cudweed Fork-leaf Corkwood Ghost Gum Golden Everlasting Kurrajong Lemon-flowered Gum MacDonnell’s Desert Fuchsia Native Bluebell Native Tomato Needlewood Olive Tree Perennial Yellow Top Rat’s Tail River Red Gum Inland River Red Gum Rosy Dock Round-leaved Mallee Scurvy Grass Silky Eremophila Stemodia viscosa Striped Mintbush Sturt’s Desert Pea Sturt’s Desert Rose Tangled Leschenaultia Tar Vine Weeping Bottlebrush White Cedar Yellow Billybutton Yellow-keeled Swainsona Yellow Oleander
The White Cedar (Melia azedarach) is a deciduous tree that can be found growing around Alice Springs. They grow to about 12 m high, although here in Alice Springs they are often smaller, although we do have some impressive ones up to 8 m high. They were often used as street plantings and in gardens, although they are actually listed in the Weeds of Central Australia field guide.
They are known by a number of common names including Bead-tree, Cape Lilac, Chinaberry, Indian Lilac, Persian Lilac, Pride of India, Syringa Berrytree, and Umbrella Cedar.
The tree has a grey-brown furrowed bark, with leaves bipinnate to tripnnate, divided into ovate-toothed leaflets.
The White Cedar have fragrant flowers that are a maroon-purple to lilac in colour with five pale lilac to almost white petals.
The fruit is a drupe (or stone fruit) that has a thin skin and layer of flesh surrounding the seed (kernel). It is marble size, pale green turning light yellow at maturity and found hanging on the tree, often until it becomes wrinkled.
The term azedarach means “poisonous tree”, with many parts of the tree being toxic, including the seed within the fruit of the tree.
Melia is from the Greek name used by Theophrastus for Fraxinus ornus, an Ash Tree (from the Gr. meli, honey, due to the sweet sap that is produced by some species). The genus Melia is named by Linnaeus, 1753, because of the opposite arrangement of the leaves resembling those of the Ash.
The name azedarach is from the French azédarac, which is in turn from the Persian Azed-darakht, meaning “noble tree”, from the Indian Neem tree (Azadirachta indica).
- Scientific classification
- Kingdom: Plantae
- Phylum: Charophyta
- Class: Equisetopsida
- Subclass: Magnoliidae
- Superorder: Rosanae
- Order: Sapindales
- Family: Meliaceae
- Genus: Melia
- Species: Melia azedarach
Footnote & References
- Weeds of Central Australia, a field guide, Sunil Dhanji, Greening Australia, ISBN 978-1-875345-83-0, Melia azedarach, White Cedar Tree, p 15
- White cedar is a rare bird: a winter deciduous Australian tree, Author Gregory Moore, Docgtor of Botany, The University of Melbourne, Beating around the bush, The Conversation, https://theconversation.com/white-cedar-is-a-rare-bird-a-winter-deciduous-australian-tree-118837
- Dictionary of Botanical Names, compiled and illustrated by Don Perrin, ISBN 978-0-6483587-1-8
Alice Springs FloraAlice Springs Flora Index Acacia ligulata Annual Yellowtop Apple Bush Bougainvillea Burdekin Plum Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqa) Cattle Bush Desert Cotton (Aerva javanica) Desert Oak Eremophila Wildberry Feijoa sellowiana Flannel Cudweed Fork-leaf Corkwood Ghost Gum Golden Everlasting Kurrajong Lemon-flowered Gum MacDonnell’s Desert Fuchsia Native Bluebell Native Tomato Needlewood Olive Tree Perennial Yellow Top Rat’s Tail River Red Gum Inland River Red Gum Rosy Dock Round-leaved Mallee Scurvy Grass Silky Eremophila Stemodia viscosa Striped Mintbush Sturt’s Desert Pea Sturt’s Desert Rose Tangled Leschenaultia Tar Vine Weeping Bottlebrush White Cedar Yellow Billybutton Yellow-keeled Swainsona Yellow Oleander
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