Question Please ID that Plant!!!

JP 1983

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
447
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
This thread has been created for the purposes of plant identification. If you've got a plant you want identified, please post a series of photographs of it here. Try to include closeups of bark, branches, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit/seeds, sap and, if possible, roots, and any other interesting features such as location/habitat, smells/odours, insects living on it, bird/animal species visiting it. Any plant from anywhere in the world may be posted here, and I rely on my fellow members from other parts of our beautiful globe to chip in with IDs especially for American, European, African and Asian species.

I shall endeavour to keep this OP (original post) updated with links to successfully identified specimens as well as unidentified specimens.

Please post each plant you want identified separately in its own reply.

Successful Identifications:

Gardening Chaos for JP 1983 - Tamanu/doomba oil tree (Calophyllum inophyllum)

Awaiting Identification:

JP 1983 - A North Queensland bush with soft yellow-red fruit
 
Last edited:

JP 1983

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
447
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
[EDIT] IDENTIFIED - tamanu/doomba oil nut tree (Calophyllum inophyllum)

Alrighty... do any of our North Queensland, NT or other tropical clime members know what this seaside tree is?

Figure 1. It's a fairly large and common seaside tree, often exceeding 15m in height.
UNID sp. [Tree - Picnic Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 2. The trunks of older trees are thick, with scaly bark.
UNID sp. [Trunk & Bark - Picnic Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 3. Leaves resemble Ficus macrophylla: thick, leathery with a prominent central vein.
UNID sp. [Foliage - Picnic Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 4. But they're not figs, because they don't exude any white latex sap (you're looking at the white, inner wood of the stem. No sap to be seen)
UNID sp. [Leaf - NO LATEX - Alma Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 5. The flowers look like this (sorry for the blur, it was high up and I couldn't get any closer)
UNID sp. [Flowers - Alma Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 6. They set into hard, green fruit on long yellow stems. Fruit fall to the ground while still green.
UNID sp. [Fallen fresh fruit - Alma Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 7. Old fruit on the ground dry out and go brown and wrinkly. They are extremely hard and cannot be crushed underfoot.
UNID sp. [Fallen dried fruit - Alma Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Figure 8. Inside the hard brown nut are several individual segments (usually two or three). Each segment contains a white kernel (thanks black cockatoos for opening this one for me!)
UNID sp. [Fruit kernel - Alma Bay, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Anyone know what this is? I'm stumped. I know for sure it's not sea almond (Terminalia catappa) or candlenut (Aleurites moluccana).
 
Last edited:

JP 1983

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
447
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
UNIDed Number 2 was this small shrub, about 6ft (180cm) tall, growing on Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, near The Forts.

UNID sp [Shrub - The Forts, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


It had attractive yellow fruits which softened and turned red when ripe
UNID sp [Fruit & Foliage - The Forts, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


Fruits resembled loquat, but these are not native loquats (aka. finger cherry, Rhodomyrtus macrocarpa) because the leaves are too small. They were soft, pliable, juicy, and contained 2 hemispherical seeds. The taste was sweet and apricot-like (I only applied a little juice to my lip for caution's sake).
UNID sp [Fruit - The Forts, Magnetic Is, 2022] sml.jpg


The shrub was happily infested with North Queensland green tree ants who bit me on the foot for disturbing them.

The yellow plum (Ximenia americana) and wongi (Manilkara kaukii) were eliminated; it seems not too far from some shrub variant of the tanjong (Mimusops elengi), however, but Mimusops have green unripe fruit. I did not see any hard green unripe fruit with prominent styles at the tip like Mimusops have on this plant. Stumped!
 
Last edited:

Briztank

Active Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Oct 3, 2022
Messages
23
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
Bugger I just pulled out a plant thinking this would have been the perfect place to ask. Smelled like mint however looked like a weed it was growing where my blueberry was so out it came. Great idea will keep this thread in mind for future random plantness!
 
Joined
Nov 17, 2022
Messages
2
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
Alrighty... do any of our North Queensland, NT or other tropical clime members know what this seaside tree is?

Figure 1. It's a fairly large and common seaside tree, often exceeding 15m in height.
View attachment 8058

Figure 2. The trunks of older trees are thick, with scaly bark.
View attachment 8059

Figure 3. Leaves resemble Ficus macrophylla: thick, leathery with a prominent central vein.
View attachment 8060

Figure 4. But they're not figs, because they don't exude any white latex sap (you're looking at the white, inner wood of the stem. No sap to be seen)
View attachment 8061

Figure 5. The flowers look like this (sorry for the blur, it was high up and I couldn't get any closer)
View attachment 8062

Figure 6. They set into hard, green fruit on long yellow stems. Fruit fall to the ground while still green.
View attachment 8063

Figure 7. Old fruit on the ground dry out and go brown and wrinkly. They are extremely hard and cannot be crushed underfoot.
View attachment 8064

Figure 8. Inside the hard brown nut are several individual segments (usually two or three). Each segment contains a white kernel (thanks black cockatoos for opening this one for me!)
View attachment 8065

Anyone know what this is? I'm stumped. I know for sure it's not sea almond (Terminalia catappa) or candlenut (Aleurites moluccana).
Isn't this a Calophyllum inophyllum?
 

daveb

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Oct 22, 2020
Messages
483
Climate
Cold, Cool, Mountains, or Artic
saw a tree like that in the Thailand , thing was huge and bark looks the same as do flowers and nut but sorry never found out its name , they harvested the and extracted an oil from nuts
 

Lunai

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Oct 21, 2022
Messages
232
Location
Delitzsch, Germany
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
UNIDed Number 2 was this small shrub, about 6ft (180cm) tall, growing on Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, near The Forts.
my ever so trustfull App (pictureThis) has spit out two possible plants:
Scurrula parasitica
Taxillus sutchuenensis

but as I'm from Europe I'm not familiar with any of these 😅

Edit: took a different pic to the app. have a look at ficus altissima (urostigma)
 
Last edited:

Lunai

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Oct 21, 2022
Messages
232
Location
Delitzsch, Germany
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
Alrighty... do any of our North Queensland, NT or other tropical clime members know what this seaside tree is?

Figure 1. It's a fairly large and common seaside tree, often exceeding 15m in height.
Suggestions from App:

Jambultree (syzygium)
Ficus elastica
Lophostemon

my own suggestion: some kind of Gum tree? those nuts being Gum Nuts?🤔 I've heard of horsefeed containing gum nuts while workingsouth of Melbourne...
 
Last edited:

JP 1983

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
447
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
Ficus elastica is definitely wrong. I'll check out the other two but hoping this will be an example of why apps will never replace humans haha

[Edit] Sorry, Lunai! All those AI generated answers were incorrect!
 
Last edited:

Lunai

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Oct 21, 2022
Messages
232
Location
Delitzsch, Germany
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
Ficus elastica is definitely wrong. I'll check out the other two but hoping this will be an example of why apps will never replace humans haha

[Edit] Sorry, Lunai! All those AI generated answers were incorrect!
no worries 😂 I've updatet the Calophyllum.

The App usually does work pretty well for my homegarden🤔 I think it is a german app, so it's kinda expected to have problems with non native plants. But as I said, thats ok 😁 The AI is only as good as it's creators.... Always learning something new.
 

JP 1983

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
447
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
The App usually does work pretty well for my homegarden🤔 I think it is a german app, so it's kinda expected to have problems with non native plants.
Very much so. I'm sure that app wouldn't have much difficulty IDing European weeds here in Aus (e.g. Taraxacum officinale; Plantago spp.; Hypochaeris spp.; Sonchus spp.; Galium aparine etc)
 

JP 1983

Valued Member
Premium Member
GOLD
Joined
Jun 30, 2021
Messages
447
Climate
Temperate (all seasons)
Edit: took a different pic to the app. have a look at ficus altissima (urostigma)
UNIDed Plant #2 is definitely not a fig. Figs have hundreds of tiny seeds and an internal flower inside the fruit, features entirely lacking in this soft, apricot-like fruit.
 
Top Bottom