Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Pisonia umbellifera

Common name

Birdlime tree

Family

Nyctaginaceae

Where found

Rainforest and wet gullies. Coast and ranges north from Jervis Bay.

Notes

Shrub or tree to 6 m tall. Bark smooth, with shallow wrinkles or ridges and furrows on older specimens. Young stems hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, opposite each other, clustered, or pseudo-whorled, 6-30 cm long (to 50 cm long on juvenile plants), 40-150 mm wide, soft, hairless. Flowers fragrant, mostly bisexual, sometimes unisexual, 2.5–10 mm long, with a green tube and 10 white, cream, yellowish, or pinkish lobes. Flowers in many-flowered branched clusters. Fruits pink to purple or black when ripe, sticky, 20-50 mm long. Fruits stick to feeding birds and can cause their death.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pisonia~umbellifera (accessed 1 February, 2021)