AusBonsai

Hi,

I have this tree growing outside my house and I would love to know what it is.

It's about 30 feet tall. Has dark green deeply lobed leaves, red/orange flowers and brown woody seed pods. The seed pods contain seeds with a rectangular wing.

The seeds seem to germinate in just about any conditions. I recently cleaned out my pool filter and there were hundreds of these seeds in there and about 90% of them had germinated. The pool is chlorinated salt water and the seeds passed through a pump to get to the filter!

I also have them growing in just about every crack in my paving and every pot in the garden.

Its definitely a prolific breeder.

Any help identifying it would be great.

Cheers.

Your tree is none other than the famous firewheel tree Stenocarpus sinuatus in my opinion one of the loveliest Proteaceae trees to occur in northern Queensland. Ash

Has any attempted to bonsai a Stenocarpus sinuatus? They would look spectacular in flower. I wonder if the leaves reduce in size

Yep. Your tree is Stenocarpus sinuatus. It's range extends from Nth Queensland as far south as the Nambucca Valley and it does well around Sydney. Never seen one trained as a bonsai. Leaf reduction would seem to be a bit daunting.

Amazing how coincidences occur.
I was at the royal botanic gardens in Melbourne yesterday and saw this tree for the first time.
It has a spectacular and particularly unique flower.

What do you know it pops up on Ausbonsai a day later!

Thanks for the feedback.

Now I look at flowers I can see how it got its name.

Shame it's not suitable for bonsai. I could grow hundreds of them. But the leaves are very big.

It's amazing how much trouble I go to growing trees like maples with the seeds in the fridge for months etc. This thing germinates like a weed.

I don't see anyone saying it can't be done in this thread?
There are heaps of big leaf tree varieties that reduce well via various techniques.
Considering you have a plentiful supply I'd give some of theses reduction techniques a go and see what happens!
Doesn't sound like you have anything to lose!

I've a couple of common figs (ficus carica) growing and their leaves are massive but can and do reduce well.