Brachychiton discolor is a rainforest tree of eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It grows in drier rainforest areas. Scattered from Paterson, New South Wales

Paterson, New South Wales

Paterson is a small township in the lower Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia. Located within Dungog Shire it is situated on the Paterson River. At the 2006 census, Paterson had a population of 345 people...

 (32° S) to Mackay, Queensland

Mackay, Queensland

Mackay is a city on the eastern coast of Queensland, Australia, about north of Brisbane, on the Pioneer River. Mackay is nicknamed the sugar capital of Australia because its region produces more than a third of Australia's cane sugar....

 (21° S). There's also an isolated community of these trees at Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula

Cape York Peninsula is a large remote peninsula located in Far North Queensland at the tip of the state of Queensland, Australia, the largest unspoilt wilderness in northern Australia and one of the last remaining wilderness areas on Earth...

.

Common names include Lacebark Tree, Lace Kurrajong, Pink Kurrajong, Scrub Bottle Tree, White Kurrajong, Hat Tree and Sycamore.

Description

An attractive tree up to 30 metres tall featuring pink flowers without petals. The trunk is straight, grey and cylindrical, up to 75 cm in diameter. Not buttressed at the base. Twigs hairy, brown and smooth.

Leaves are hairy; lobed in three, five or seven points. 10 to 20 cm in diameter. Whitish underneath, dark green above. Leaf veins visible on both sides.

Flowers form from November to February. The flowers are pink, almost without stalks, 3 to 4 cm in diameter. Separate male and female flowers without petals. The fruit is a hairy boat shaped follicle

Follicle (fruit)

In botany, a follicle is a dry unilocular many-seeded fruit formed from one carpel and dehiscing by the ventral suture in order to release seeds, such as in larkspur, magnolia, banksia, peony and milkweed....

 maturing from December to July. 7 to 20 cm long, containing up to 30 seeds, 9 mm long. Germination from fresh seed occurs without difficulty.

Uses

Widely planted as an ornamental tree. Wood used as shields by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

. Roasted seeds edible to humans.