''Diploglottis smithii'', commonly known as Smith's tamarind or wild tamarind, is a plant in the maple family

Sapindaceae The Sapindaceae are a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales known as the soapberry family. It contains 138 genera and 1858 accepted species. Examples include horse chestnut, maples, ackee and lychee. The Sapindaceae occur in tempera ...

found only in the Wet Tropics bioregion of

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

, Australia.

Description

It is a tree up to 18 m tall and 60 cm trunk diameter, and it may produce

buttress root Buttress roots also known as plank roots are large, wide roots on all sides of a shallowly rooted tree. Typically, they are found in nutrient-poor tropical forest soils that may not be very deep. They prevent the tree from falling over (hence t ...

s. The large

compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struct ...

leaves can reach 47 cm in length (including the petiole), with between 4 and 6 pairs of leaflets. The leaflets have 24–34 lateral veins set about 7 mm apart, which are depressed in the upper surface (i.e. they are ). The inflorescence is a

thyrse A thyrse is a type of inflorescence in which the main axis grows indeterminately, and the subaxes (branches) have determinate growth.{{cite book , author1=Hickey, M., author2=King, C. , year=2001 , title=The Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Bot ...

with numerous small flowers about 5 mm diameter. The fruits are yellowy-green, 2- or 3-valved capsules about 1.8 cm long and 3 cm wide, each valve containing a single brown seed entirely enclosed in an orange

aril An aril (pronounced ), also called an arillus, is a specialized outgrowth from a seed that partly or completely covers the seed. An arillode or false aril is sometimes distinguished: whereas an aril grows from the attachment point of the see ...

Taxonomy

This species was first described by the Australian botanist and Sapindaceae specialist

Sally T. Reynolds Sally T. Reynolds (born 1932) is an Australian botanist. She worked at the Queensland Herbarium as principal botanist and as a specialist on Australian Sapindaceae. Paul Irwin Forster, Paul Forster named ''Synima reynoldsiae'' in recognition of ...

, and published in the journal

Austrobaileya ''Austrobaileya'' is the sole genus consisting of a single species that constitutes the entire flowering plant family Austrobaileyaceae. The species ''Austrobaileya scandens'' grows naturally only in the Wet Tropics rainforests of northeast ...

in 1981.

Etymology

The genus name ''Diploglottis'' comes from the

Neo-Latin New Latin (also called Neo-Latin or Modern Latin) is the revival of Literary Latin used in original, scholarly, and scientific works since about 1500. Modern scholarly and technical nomenclature, such as in zoological and botanical taxonomy ...

words '' diplo-'' meaning double, and ''

glottis The glottis is the opening between the vocal folds (the rima glottidis). The glottis is crucial in producing vowels and voiced consonants. Etymology From Ancient Greek ''γλωττίς'' (glōttís), derived from ''γλῶττα'' (glôtta), va ...

'' meaning tongue, which is a reference to the two tongue-like scales on the petals. The species epithet ''smithii'' was chosen to honour the botanist

Lindsay Stuart Smith Lindsay Stuart Smith (27 November 1917 – 12 September 1970) was an Australian Botany, botanist, Natural history, naturalist and Civil service, public servant. Early years Lindsay Smith was born in Bundaberg in Queensland and attended Bundaber ...

who collected the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular wiktionary:en:specimen, specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to a ...

in 1948, and was an authority on Sapindaceae in Australia.

Distribution and habitat

Smith's tamarind is restricted to coastal rainforest in northeast Queensland from about

Cooktown Cooktown is a coastal town and locality in the Shire of Cook, Queensland, Australia. Cooktown is at the mouth of the Endeavour River, on Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland where James Cook beached his ship, the Endeavour, for repairs ...

to just south of Innisfail, at altitudes from sea level to 450 m.

Conservation

This species is listed as

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

under the Queensland Government's

Nature Conservation Act The ''Nature Conservation Act 1992'' is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that, together with subordinate legislation, provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota. As originally published, it prov ...

. , it has not been assessed by the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

(IUCN).

Gallery

File:Diploglottis-smithii-SF24165-02.jpg, Foliage File:Diploglottis-smithii-SF24013-01.jpg, The compound leaf File:Diploglottis-smithii-SF24014-04.jpg, Fruits and seeds File:Diploglottis-smithii-SF24165-06.jpg, A tree in rainforest near

Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...

, Queensland

References

External links

View a map
of herbarium collections of this species at the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgamat ...

View observations
of this species on

iNaturalist iNaturalist is a social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its website or from its mobile applic ...

View images
of this species on Flickriver.com {{Taxonbar, from=Q15547144 smithii Endemic flora of Queensland Taxa named by Sally T. Reynolds Plants described in 1981