Banyalla (fruit) (Pittosporum bicolor) | Project Noah

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Photo by Mark Ridgway

Published on Project Noah

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Field Notes

Description:

About 22mm long; flesh is very red, segmented, viscid, 'wings' are the two halves of the fruit covering opened up to 90 degrees. The tree was about 6 metres tall; leaves opposite, pointy and long.

Habitat:

In very tall eucalyptus rain forest.

Notes:

This is an endemic to our area and is also called 'Tallow-wood'.
It is closely related to the common 'Sweet pittosporum' - Pittosporum undulatum which has the common name of 'Australian cheesewood'.
The two species have been known to hybridise.

Distribution in Australia http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Tallow-wood

The same species in a different location showing the whole plant http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/17144532
Thanks to Jason Alexander for finding this ID

Reference Links:

Pittosporum bicolor - Overview, Pittosporum bicolor, .: Pittosporum bicolor :.

Species ID Suggestions

Cheesewood / Banyalla

Pittosporum bicolor

Jason Alexander

1

Comments (15)

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gr8 Jason, I was really curious too ;)

Jason Alexander

Welcome, I was very curious to know this fruit :)

..although there's something tangled up with the Flickr link ID but I'll sort it out. (Cheesewood is not P.bicolor on Wiki) - thanks again.

Fantastic Jason - thanks for that ID.

Bizarre! I've never seen one of those.

Thanks Maria, injica.

Wonderful! Probably poisonous since it looks so attractive ;)

Interesting spotting!

Possibly Pittosporum revolutum - apparently indigenous peoples used to eat it. Going back for more pics of the plant...

I thought about it Sergio... but if it's they only untouched fruit in a forest full of hungry creatures would you? 8-)

Sergio Monteiro

It looks tasty, is it edible?

The wings remind me of Mickey Mouse ears!

Thanks Mayra and Gerardo. It's a fun spotting.

Gerardo Aizpuru

Wow great find Argy :)

MayraSpringmann

Wow!

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