Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Billardiera heterophylla

Flowering stems. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Flowers and leafy stems. Photographer Janet Russell, Canberra, ACT

Fruit and leafy stems. Photographer CathB, Canberra, ACT

Common name

Purple Appleberry, Bluebell Creeper

Family

Pittosporaceae

Where found

Open forest, woodland, shrubland, and disturbed sites. Coast, Blue Mountains, and ACT. Rarely elsewhere.

Notes

Introduced woody, rounded shrubs, with some branches eventually climbing. Fruit  fleshy. New stems almost hairless. Adult leaves alternating up the stems, 3–5 cm long, 10–20 mm wide, narrower in climbing branches, both surfaces becoming hairless, tips pointed, margins scalloped. Flowers blue, white, or pink, with 5 petals 7–10 long. Flowers nodding, in clusters of up to 10 flowers. Flowering mainly in summer. Fruit green-purple, 20–30 mm long, oblong-cylindrical.

Native of WA.

Was included in Sollya heterophylla.

Description based on Cayzer, L.W., Crisp, M.D. & Telford, I.R.H. (2004), Cladistic analysis and revision of Billardiera (Pittosporaceae). Australian Systematic Botany 17(1): 119, 121 Figs 36, 37 (map)

The description in PlantNET appears to have been written before Billardiera haterophylla and Billardiera fusiformis were separated. (accessed 4 May 2021)