Re: Brachychiton acerifolius

More on the subject from Sydney:
 
B. acerifolius extends up the east coast of Australia from about 100 miles S of Sydney to maybe 200 miles N of Brisbane, then in more interrupted occurrences well into the tropics. As far as I know it's confined to true rainforest as we use the term in Australia, i.e. forest of continuous canopy, many tree species (except at highest altitudes and latitudes), no eucalypts, and lianes and epiphytes abundant. At the southern end of this range rainfall is not strongly seasonal, though has a modest peak in early autumn, and is mostly 40-60 in/yr where such rainforests occur. Going north toward the tropics rainfall becomes much more summer-dominant and the dry season is quite severe, but I think B. acerifolius sticks to the wetter patches on the coastal escarpment that catch moist ocean air -- other Brachychiton spp. take its place in more monsoonal areas, e.g. B. discolor, B. australis, B. rupestris, and members of the B. paradoxus group when you get to the far north.
 
There is a gap in the distribution of B. acerifolius from about 50 miles north of Sydney to about 50 miles south, which seems to correspond with the infertile sandstone and shale soils of the Sydney region. Further south it occurs mainly on basalt soils. Distributions of Ficus macrophylla and the palm Archontophoenix cunninghamiana show a similar gap.
 
Interesting about this species doing well in San Diego with 20 in rainfall -- the same goes for Ficus macrophylla, doesn't it? and that grows in much the same rainforests here as B. acerifolius. Can they thrive without any irrigation?
 
In NSW it's one of our very few deciduous rainforest trees though unlike our famous Red Cedar (Toona ciliata), which is leafless in winter, it is leafless through spring and a little into summer. But it can be erratic and some trees do not lose their leaves, or lose them only on part of the canopy. As an ornamental in Sydney it's renowned for the unreliability of its flowering. This generally correlates strongly with leaflessness, and often you will only get flowers on the leafless part of a tree's canopy. From about the 1930s to the 50s there was a fad for mixing them with jacarandas in streets and parks here as the flowering seasons usually overlap and people loved the color combination, but in the end they found the Brachychiton could not be relied on (jacarandas are very reliable and are spectacular in Sydney). Incidentally, there are hybrids occasionally grown here, of B. acerifolius x B. populneus and B. acerifolius x B. discolor, but they are not nearly as showy and often flower very poorly.
----- Original Message -----
From: R*@jschlesinger.com
To: m*@ucdavis.edu
Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 11:43 PM
Subject: Re: Brachychiton acerifolius

Thanks for reminding me, Nan, of a tree I had forgotten I was interested in -Now I am curious as to its water wants.  TOny puts it in New South Wales rainforest (seasonal rains with a dry period?) and Nan finds it in San Diego (which  gets less than 20" of rain  in a year).  Does it want lots/regular/occasional water in San Diego?  What are the seasonal periods of rain in the NSW rainforest where it grow naturally?
 
Richard Starkeson
Berkeley, California
They are native in coastal New South Wales    .  .  .  .  always in dense rainforest
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