Lakeside location perfect for spectacular African flower show

For a tree with flowers each only a few millimetres across, the Wild Elder makes a big statement in late August. There are five large trees in Melbourne Gardens, three of them flanking the Ornamental Lake and visible from the opposite side. This one is wrapped around a palm and a few other unlucky plants.

The Wild Elder is a tree from Africa, one of 15 species of Nuxia. The genus was named to honour an 18th century French Botanist from the island of Réunion, Jean-Baptiste François de la Nux. Common names in English in addition to Wild Elder are Kite Tree and Forest Elder. A very cute and curious common name from the Zulu, is umHlambandlazi, meaning mousebird-washer.

As to what kind of tree it is, the White Elder was once classified in the family Loganiaceae or Buddlejaceae. Nowadays its in the Stilbaceae, along with the sticky-flowered Bowkeria, which I posted on last year.

OK, so none of that helps, apart from perhaps thinking that butterfly bush, Buddleja, also has impressive masses of small flowers.

The tree photographed here towers above the nearby Terrace restaurant, and must be well over 10 metres tall, the maximum height usually achieved by this species. More typically, it has contorted main stems if you peer in behind the leaves and flowers.

The leaves are opposite one another on the stem, or arranged in whorls of three. Young leaves are said to have a distinctive red or purple midvein but I didn't notice that.

What I did notice where the flowers. Millions of them on this single tree (refer to my previous post about trying to estimate the number of flowers on a tree...), each only a few millimetres long and wide. In my pictures you can see flowers with the stalks of the male parts (the filaments) white or brownish - the latter in older flowers, after release of pollen I think.

This species, Nuxia floribunda, stands out from all others in the genus on account of its stunning floral commitment: 'floribunda' translates as an abundance of flowers.

In its homeland, from near Cape Town in South Africa through to eastern and central tropical Africa, it grows in coastal and mountain forests, often near rivers. It doesn't like drought or frost, so the position of my featured tree beside the lake in Melbourne Gardens is perfect.

While I found plenty of bees among the nectar-rich flowers, they, the flowers, will pollinate themselves without the intervention of an insect intermediary. So we should expect some fruit soon (my flowers photos were taken in late August).

In Africa, 'full flowering' happens, apparently only every second year. I don't know, yet, if that's the case in Melbourne.