Dodonaea viscosa is a species of flowering plant in the Dodonaea (hopbush) genus that has a cosmopolitan distribution in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of Africa, the Americas, southern Asia and Australasia
COMMON NAME
Akeake
SYNONYMS
Dodonaea viscosa Jacq. subsp. viscosa
FAMILY
Sapindaceae
FLORA CATEGORY
Vascular – Native
STRUCTURAL CLASS
Trees & Shrubs – Dicotyledons
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
Bushy shrub or small tree with flaky reddish bark and bearing long thin wavy leaves. Young parts sticky. Leaves 4-15cm long by 1-4cm wide, green to red-purple gradually narrowing to short leaf stalk and quickly narrowing to a rounded leaf tip. Flowers in panicles, small, yellow-green to red-green, developing into green dry 2-4-winged capsules.
DISTRIBUTION
Indigenous. New Zealand: Three Kings, North, South and Chatham Islands. Widespread throughout the world (see Harrington & Gadek 2009). Though long regarded as naturalised on the Chatham Islands (de Lange et al. 2011), recent unpublished pollen core data show this view is incorrect (J. Wilmshurst pers. comm. 2014).
HABITAT
Coastal to lowland forest, occupying a range of habitats from dunefields and boulder beaches through coastal scrub to lowland forest. Rarely forming a dominant tree in coastal forest and especially on offshore islands
FEATURES
Shrub or small tree 3-12 m. Bark reddish brown, flaking readily in irregular shards, flakes often detaching in masses toward trunk base; young branchlets flattened to triangular, glabrous. Young growth and buds sticky (viscid). Leaves sessile or on petioles 8-12 mm. long; lamina membranous, subcoriaceous to coriaceous, initially viscid, 40-150 × 10-35 mm, green, yellow-green, bronze or red-purple; linear–lanceolate, lanceolate, elliptic to oblanceolate; base narrowly attenuate to cuneate; apex obtuse, rarely emarginate or subacute;
FLOWERING
August – November
FLOWER COLOURS
Red/Pink, Yellow
FRUITING
November – April
LIFE CYCLE
Winged fruit are dispersed by wind and possibly also by water (Thorsen et al., 2009).
PROPAGATION TECHNIQUE
Easily grown from fresh seed. Often self-establishes in gardens. Dodonaea is an attractive fast-growing shrub or small tree. It is frost sensitive but otherwise remarkably resilient and will tolerate all but waterlogged soils. It should be planted in full sun. The most commonly cultivated form is D. viscosa ‘purpurea’ a colour-sport that sporadically occurs in wild populations, and which occasionally reverts in cultivation.
ETYMOLOGY
dodonaea: Whispering
viscosa: Sticky