WHITEWOOD
Atalaya hemiglauca
Plant Family
Sapindaceae
Alternative Common Names
cattle bush
Tree usually less than 6m high with rough barked trunk. Drought resistant tree usually found in isolated clumps in many plant communities of the upper Darling Basin.
Often freely suckering from the roots.
Leaves - young leaves with 1 or 2 lobes, the older leaves each consisting of 1-3 pairs of well-spaced leathery dull greyish, or bluish-green leaflets, 6-20 cm long and 6-12 mm wide.
Flowers - creamy green, borne in large panicles in the leaf axils or at the ends of the branches. Fruit yellowish-green with pale green large membranous wing at end of fruit.
Flowering spring-summer.
Indigenous uses - wood used for spear shafts
Habitat
Open plains and alluvial flats, where it may be the dominant species on sandy surfaced duplex or clay soils; less common on gravelly clay loam red earths in bimble box communities; also on dune crests and slopes in mulga communities.
27