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Carrotwood

Wed, 01/30/2008 - 4:55pm — beth56
Cupaniopsis anacardioides -- Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants

Cupaniopsis anacardioides

Non-Native to Florida

carrotwood

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    Cupaniopsis anacardioides is occasionally fround in disturbed sites along the central peninsula of Florida, and in Miami-Dade county. It is native to Australia but escaped cultivation. Carrotwood blooms from spring to summer.

    Appearance: Slender evergreen tree, usually single-trunked, to 10 m (33 ft) tall, with dark gray outer bark and often orange inner bark.

    Leaves: Alternate, once compound (usually even-pinnate), with petioles swollen at the base; 4–12 leaflets, stalked, oblong, leathery, shiny yellowish green, to 20 cm (8 in) long and 7.5 cm (3 in) wide; margins entire and tips rounded or slightly indented.

    Flowers: Numerous, white to greenish yellow, up to 0.8 cm
    (0.4 in) wide, in branched clusters to 35 cm (14 in) long at leaf axils; 5 petals; 6–8 stamens.

    Fruit: A short-stalked, woody capsule, to 2.2 cm (0.9 in) across, with 3 distinctly ridged segments; yellow orange when ripe, drying to brown and splitting open to expose 3 shiny oval black seeds covered by a yellow-red crust (aril).

    Ecological threat: Invades spoil islands, beach dunes, marshes, tropical hammocks, pinelands, mangrove and cypress swamps, scrub habitats, and coastal strands; greatly altering understory habitat. FLEPPC Category I

    Distribution: NW, NE, C, SW, SE

    Text from Invasive and Non-Native Plants You Should Know, Recognition Cards, by A. Richard and V. Ramey, 2007. UF/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, Publ. No. SP 431.

    Download the Recognition Card (PDF 826 KB).

     

    For more information about carrotwood, download the following publications:

    UF/IFAS-EDIS, Cupaniopsis anacardiopsis Carrotwood, by E.F. Gilman and D.G. Watson.

    UF/IFAS-EDIS, Natural Area Weeds: Carrotwood, by K.A. Langeland.

    Excerpted from Identification & Biology of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas, by K.A. Langeland and K. Burks

    See the UF/IFAS Assessment, which lists plants according to their invasive status in Florida.

    carrotwood View the herbarium specimen image of the University of Florida Herbarium Digital Imaging Projects.