Plant of the Day is: Akania bidwillii or turnipwood tree

Plant of the day is: Akania bidwillii or turnipwood tree

Why this plant you ask?  You guessed it.  It is the next A families on the list and it doesn't seem to be as bad of a tongue twister.  This is a tree, btw.  A tree.  It is called turnipwood because when it is cut down it gives off a bit of a foul odor similar to turnips...hey I don't make the calls.

Taxonomy:  Well this is the type genus for the family Akaniaceae.  Thankfully another small family containing Akania (which is a monotypic genus) and Bretshniedera which according to your local taxonomist could deserve its own family.  There is not a lot of easily obtainable info about family characteristics on this one.  I'll just have to give you this species traits and call it good at that for now...perhaps revist the also monotypic Bretshniedera some time (it's flowers are cooler actually).  Bretshniedera is endangered, so that, ...is a bummer

ID:  A "mid-size" tree growing up to 12 meters.  Well as you can tell the leaves are pinnately compound.  The leaves themselves are alternate and the leaflets of the leaves are arranged opposite (as you can see in the picture above).  The leaflets themselves are kind of neat and are very lanceolate and toothed.  A pretty rough looking leaflet really.  The upper side of the leaf is dark green and glossy.  The petioles of the leaves are reportedly a bit swollen.  The flowers are for the sake of sanity and to get away from morphological jaron we'll say they have 5 petals and the flowers are on panicles.  The corolla is hairy, mayhaps?  The fruit is supposed to be a dull red football looking capsule that then dries down and releases 1-2 seeds.  From the absurd bits of info I can find it can be elusive to find flowering and find fruit for.  

G'day mate!:  This species is endemic to Australia, and is a widespread but uncommon tree of New South Wales and Queensland down under.  The photo above is courtesy of Melbourne Royal Botanical Gardens actually, where you can allegedly find some of these.  I'll be looking on my next visit :).  Also I love watching this spell check light up when I use botanical terms lulz.

This was a tough one to find stuff on for having a family named after it I thought.  Gar.

Finally found an herbarium sheet!! (check them Wiki references folks...and also donate!)

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Akania~bidwillii