Lepiderema pulchella



Lepiderema pulchella, commonly known as fine-leaved tuckeroo, is a species of flowering plant in the family Sapindaceae and is endemic to coastal eastern Australia. It is a tree with pinnate, glossy light green leaves with four to fourteen leaflets, panicles of yellow-orange flowers and brown, spherical to three-lobed fruit.

Description
Lepiderema pulchella is a tree that typically grows to a height of 15 m and is mostly glabrous. The leaves are pinnate, 70–150 mm long on a petiole 15–25 mm long with four to fourteen leaflets, the leaflets narrow elliptic to lance-shaped, more or less curved, 25–80 mm long, 10–25 mm wide and with wavy edges. The flowers are arranged in panicles 55–120 mm long in leaf axils, each flower on a pedicel 2–3.5 mm long. The flowers are yellow-orange and 2–3 mm long, the sepals 1.5–3.5 mm long. The fruit is a brown, spherical to three-lobed capsule 8-10 mm in diameter containing dark brown seeds about 5 mm long, the fruit maturing in December.

Taxonomy
Lepiderema pulchella was first formally described in 1907 by Ludwig Adolph Timotheus Radlkofer in Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien Nachtr.

Distribution and habitat
Fine-leaved tuckeroo grows on creek and river banks and at the edge of rainforest from far south-eastern Queensland to the Tweed River in New South Wales.

Conservation status
This tuckeroo is classified as "vulnerable" under the Queensland Government Nature Conservation Act 1992.