Omalanthus populifolius, the Bleeding Heart or Queensland poplar, is an 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...

n rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 plant. It often appears in areas of rainforest disturbance. Bleeding Heart is highly regarded by rainforest regenerators because of its fast growth and use as a pioneer species in rainforest regeneration.

Bleeding Heart grows from the coastal border of New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 and Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

 (36° S), north to Coen, Queensland

Coen, Queensland

Coen is a small inland town on the main road heading up the Cape York Peninsula in far northern Queensland, Australia. It is in the Cook Shire Local Government Area. At the 2006 census, Coen had a population of 253....

 (13° S) in the tropics. It is also found in Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island

Lord Howe Island is an irregularly crescent-shaped volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand, directly east of mainland Port Macquarie, and about from Norfolk Island. The island is about 11 km long and between 2.8 km and 0.6 km wide with an area of...

, Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island

Norfolk Island is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance...

, New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

 and Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

, and has been widely planted elsewhere.

Description

A small tree or shrub, up to 8 metres tall and 15 cm in diameter.

The trunk is cylindrical with greyish brown bark, fairly smooth but with some bumps and irregularities. Branchlets appear thick, reddish or green. The leaves are triangular, not toothed and alternate. 5 to 15 cm long. The leaves turn red when senescent, hence the common name of Bleeding Heart.

Flowers are yellow green to red, 2 to 10 cm long. Appearing on racemes mostly in the months of September to December. The fruit matures from December to March, being a two lobed capsule with an oily yellow aril

Aril

An aril is any specialized outgrowth from the funiculus that covers or is attached to the seed. It is sometimes applied to any appendage or thickening of the seed coat in flowering plants, such as the edible parts of the mangosteen and pomegranate fruit, the mace of the nutmeg seed, or the...

. The seeds germinate quickly when the warmth of direct sunlight is available. However, as with many pioneer species, the seeds of the Bleeding Heart have a long dormancy period.

The fruit is eaten by a variety of birds, including Brown Cuckoo Dove, Silvereye

Silvereye

The Silvereye or Wax-eye is a very small passerine bird native to Australia, New Zealand and the south-west Pacific islands of Lord Howe, New Caledonia, Loyalty Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji...

 and Lewin's Honeyeater

Lewin's Honeyeater

The Lewin's Honeyeater, Meliphaga lewinii, is a bird that inhabits the ranges along the east coast of Australia. It has a semicircular ear patch, pale yellow in colour.The name of this bird commemorates the Australian artist John Lewin....

.

Uses

The small size and decorative red leaves make this an attractive garden plant. However, its characteristics as a pioneer species also make it a good invader in disturbed areas. It is regarded as an invasive species in southern Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

and New Zealand