BROADLEAF HOP BUSH
Dodonaea viscosa
Plant Family
Sapindaceae
Alternative Common Names
giant hopbush, watchupga, switch-sorrel, sticky hopbush, akeake, apiri.
Known as hop bush as they were used to make beer by early European Australians. Tall sticky hairless bushy shrub, 2-3m high.
Leaves - sticky and leathery. The foliage is evergreen, with the leaf shape usually spatulate (spoon-shaped).
Flowers - inconspicuous, borne on stalks in short clusters in the leaf axils, without petals, the sepals green, 3-5, hairy.
Fruit - green, red or purplish capsule, with 3 or 4 spreading vertical wings, 10-18mm long in total and about as broad.
Flowering late winter-spring.
Indigenous uses - treat toothache, cuts and stingray stings.
Habitat
Loamy red earths in mallee and white cypress pine communities; shallow stony soils of hillslopes and ridges in mugga ironbark and currawang communities.
14, 19