Tree of the week: Queensland Umbrella tree

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Good morning, Anthony Kim, and good luck today. It is the last weekend of summer, and the end of a tumultuous week. I for one could use a little quiet time with a tree, and I’m glad Pieter Severynen can provide it, with Tree of the Week.

Queensland Umbrella Tree – Schefflera actinophylla

Our Southland climate is so hospitable that not only do we attract people from all over the world, our plant inventory is equally all encompassing. Inhabitants of cold climates feel as much at home here in our outdoors as denizens of tropical jungles that might be tenderly cared for as houseplants elsewhere in the world. The Schefflera is a good example. It is native to the tropical rain forests of northern Queensland, Australia; New Guinea; and Java, Indonesia, but it thrives here, both as a potted plant and as an outdoor tree. Much as we may want to give our native California plants a larger role in future plantings, we will have existing imports around for a long time.

The Queensland Umbrella tree is a fast-growing, exotically tropical plant that may reach 20 to 40 feet tall and wide. Strictly speaking it is not a tree since it does not produce wood. Multiple trunks are usually rather thin, smooth, light gray and unbranched. Shape of foliage gives rise to the ‘umbrella’ name: The long-stalked leaves are divided in multiple (7-16), glossy, green, elliptical leaflets, each up to 12 inches long, radiating out and down like ribs of an umbrella. In a sunny location the tree produces 3-foot-long, stiff, narrow rayed flower structures at its top, covered with dark red flowers; they appear like an inverted umbrella or the tentacles of an octopus, hence the other name of ‘Octopus Tree.’ Reddish purple, fleshy, half-inch fruits follow. The tree will take most any soil as long as it is well drained; it loves full sun or partial shade. It looks best with regular water but it is moderately drought tolerant. This may be because large roots at and below the surface travel widely in search of irrigated areas.

Our summer dry environments make the Schefflera behave reasonably well, but it has escaped cultivation and become an invasive pest in central and southern Florida and in Hawaii. In its native habitat it often grows as an epiphyte on other rainforest trees, in the manner of strangler figs. Smaller, shrubbier species that still maintain some umbrella look are available.

Thanks, Pieter

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