Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Alyxia ruscifolia

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Fruit, flowers, and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Fruiting shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer A Lyne, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Common name

Prickly Alyxia, Chain Fruit

Family

Apocynaceae

Where found

Forest. Coastal in the Wollongong district. Also farther north, north of the area covered by this key.

Notes

Shrub to about 5 m high. Leaves with sharp spiny tips. Fruit fleshy. Stems usually hairless. Leaves in whorls of 3-6, 1-7 cm long, 3-30 mm wide, hairless, glossy, leathery, margins slightly curved down, entire or rarely finely toothed, tips pointed. Flowers fragrant, white, 6-11 mm long, tubular, with 5 lobes each 2-5 mm long. Flowers in 3-8 flowered clusters. Fruit orange to red, rarely black, single or in a chain of 2-4 fruit.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Alyxia~ruscifolia (accessed 3 January, 2021)