AusBonsai

Hello all. I dug this up in the hunter valley recently. I was told by the property owner that it is native and known locally as a dogwood. It does not look like any dogwood I have been able to find pictures of.
The leaves are not needles, they are long thin and flat. They are sharp on the end arrange in simple opposite pairs. They have a sort of waxy sheen to them. Here is a close up. The mature bark is dark brown to black and papery. Coming off easily in small papery pieces (not sheets) when it is dry and it goes a bit spongy when it is wet. Apologies for this photo, even with a tripod I couldn't get this crystal clear Thanks for any assistance anyone can provide.

A problem with common names, dogwood are usually members of the genus cornus which are northern hemisphere trees all but one deciduous. Cornus kousa is the one the Japanese use for bonsai.
Craig

Looks like a species of Persoonia.

Joel

Looks like a geebung. Don't know the proper name.

Paul

I would agree with the above, looks like a Persoonia sp..
Try Persoonia pinifolius for a start I guess.

Hey Naym, Could you check a few characters for me for ID?

Have a look at the cut end of the stem- look at the wood- does it look like it has an oak grain? Look for little rays of slightly different coloured cells radiating out from the centre of the stem. This could confirm if it is in the family Proteaceae. The bark does look like a Persoonia, but Persoonia I am familiar with are the tropical ones and don't look like these leaves.

Another thing to have a look for- take some young leaves and crush them with your fingertips and smell them. Is there an aromatic oil present? Like ti-tree or eucalyptus? Alternatively you could look for oil glands with a lense. If there was oil this could confirm it is in the family Myrtaceae. The leaves look a bit like Lysicarpus angustifolius and the young bark looks OK too. Old trees get a dark brownish stringy bark. The family call it dogwood- no idea where they got that from.

OK have fun
Ash

Ash wrote:Hey Naym, Could you check a few characters for me for ID?

Have a look at the cut end of the stem- look at the wood- does it look like it has an oak grain? Look for little rays of slightly different coloured cells radiating out from the centre of the stem. This could confirm if it is in the family Proteaceae. The bark does look like a Persoonia, but Persoonia I am familiar with are the tropical ones and don't look like these leaves.

Another thing to have a look for- take some young leaves and crush them with your fingertips and smell them. Is there an aromatic oil present? Like ti-tree or eucalyptus? Alternatively you could look for oil glands with a lense. If there was oil this could confirm it is in the family Myrtaceae. The leaves look a bit like Lysicarpus angustifolius and the young bark looks OK too. Old trees get a dark brownish stringy bark. The family call it dogwood- no idea where they got that from.

OK have fun
Ash

Hi Ash,
Here in Sydney there appears to be a few spp. of Persoonia that exhibit needle-like foliage. One I know of is P. pinifolius and another is P. linearis, I'm sure Joel would know more though. This confused me alot when I was learning about this genus as the sp. I was shown had large, flat, glabrous leaves and when I saw this needle-like sp., I didn't believe it could be from the same genera!
Do you have any pics/links to the Lysicarpus angustifolius, I would love to see one, sounds like a nice tree!
Thanks

Thanks for the help everyone.

From the speceis suggested so far I would suggest (from photographs of the web) that P. linearis and Lysicarpus angustifolius are most likely. However I think based on the answers to Ash's questions (see below) it seems perhaps P. linearis is more likely. I think it's unlikely to be P. pinifolius. When do Persoonias fruit? There are no stems from past fruit on the tree, but I'll try to find out from the property owner where I dug it up if there is fruit and what it looks like.

Ash wrote:Hey Naym, Could you check a few characters for me for ID?

Have a look at the cut end of the stem- look at the wood- does it look like it has an oak grain? Look for little rays of slightly different coloured cells radiating out from the centre of the stem. This could confirm if it is in the family Proteaceae. The bark does look like a Persoonia, but Persoonia I am familiar with are the tropical ones and don't look like these leaves.

Another thing to have a look for- take some young leaves and crush them with your fingertips and smell them. Is there an aromatic oil present? Like ti-tree or eucalyptus? Alternatively you could look for oil glands with a lense. If there was oil this could confirm it is in the family Myrtaceae. The leaves look a bit like Lysicarpus angustifolius and the young bark looks OK too. Old trees get a dark brownish stringy bark. The family call it dogwood- no idea where they got that from.

OK have fun
Ash

Ash,
The cuts I am looking at are now a couple of weeks old and on branches that are only 7-10 mm in diameter. However it does look like oak and I found couple of darker streaks radiating from the centre (although small and hard to see on these young branches). I also found a couple of growth rings that are the same colour (no more than one for a given branch).

The leaves do not smell like there is any oil present. It's just a regular crushed leaf smell.

I hope this helps you help me
Thanks
Naym.

OK oak grain present therefore pretty good chance it is in the family Proteaceae which suits a Persoonia. Either way grow it on and let us know how it goes.
cheers!
Ash