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Brachychiton Compactus Whitsunday Bottle Tree Seeds
Packet of 10+ very rarely available seeds!
These seeds were sent to me by a customer at Airlie beach and I only have a few at this stage.
From a distance they look like a standard Queensland bottle tree, but they are actually very uncommon and under serious threat from us humans.
Officially classed as “near threatened” in QLD and not found in nature anywhere else.
The endless demand for housing is putting heavy pressure on the lands these giants once inhabited.
In the wild they are only found within the Pioneer Bay and Airlie Beach catchments and a couple small nearby islands(Hook, Armit and Double Cone).
I found a 2007 study that said “the preferred habitat of the Whitsunday bottle tree has been estimated to be 8175 ha on the mainland. Of this it is estimated that 300 ha have been destroyed or modified for development. A further 680 ha of the remaining 7875 ha is also threatened by future development.”
That was more than a decade ago and I can’t imagine things have gotten better for it in the meantime…
Anyway, it’s a very cool tree, it’s very rarely available, and I will be planting a heap of these myself.
*EDIT* I did plant a heap and am getting 70%+ after only 2 weeks.
It produces a seed that is a food for the critters, the white and red flowers attracts the bees and birds, it has interesting changes in foliage throughout it’s life, is very drought tolerant once established and in my personal opinion is just super cool.
If you are in a warm climate then you should buy a pack.
You can grow them in large pots for years-decades, so even if you are renting or planning on moving later on down the track, they still make a great choice.
