Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Coprosma niphophila

Fruiting plant. Photographer Dane Wimbush, Kosciuszko National Park

Common name

Snowpatch Coprosma

Family

Rubiaceae

Where found

Very low shrubland in alpine feldmark, and rock ledges and crevices, in open sites above the snowline. Kosciuszko National Park.

Notes

Prostrate shrub. Fruit fleshy. Stems to 1 m long, hairless, rooting at the base and sparsely at the nodes, densely matted or trailing. Leaves opposite each other, confined to the upper part of short shoots, mostly 0.3–0.7 cm long, 1.7–2.5 mm wide, thick, hairless, shining, tips blunt to somewhat pointed. Male and female flowers on different plants, with vestigial or functional parts of the opposite sex. Flowers pale yellow, tubular, usually with 4 lobes. Male flowers 3–8 mm long, with a conical to narrowly funnel-shaped tube, and more or less curved down lobes 2-2.5 mm long. Female flowers about 4 mm long, with a cylindrical tube 1-1.5 mm long, and spreading lobes 2.5-3.5 mm long. Flowers single. Flowering: chiefly summer. Fruit orange-red, oval to globular, 6–10 mm long.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Coprosma~niphophila (accessed 7 January, 2021)