Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Billardiera macrantha

Common name

Purple Appleberry

Family

Pittosporaceae

Where found

Forest and moist sites, particularly along streams and in gullies. ACT, the mountains to the west, and Kosciuszko National Park. Tablelands and ranges south of Cooma. Occasionally elsewhere.

Notes

Perennial twiner, sometimes scrambling, stems to several metres long. Stems densely hairy when young, becoming  hairless and shining brown, lenticels prominent. Leaves alternating up the stems, 1–7 cm long, 2–10 mm wide, upper surface glossy green, lower surface pale green, margins slightly down-turned. Juvenile leaves 1–2 cm long, with three lobes, adult leaves not lobed. Flowers white, or green to yellow, becoming darker yellow with age, rarely tinged red or purple, tips of the lobes sometimes tinged or spotted dark blue at the margins, 17–40 mm long, tubular, with 5 lobes not or hardly spreading, splitting to the base at maturity or remaining fused only about the middle. Flowers single, occasionally paired or in small clusters, drooping. Flowers Spring-Summer. Fruit pulp dryish when ripe. Fruit purple, shiny, oval to cylindrical, 18–25 mm long.

Was Billardiera longiflora.

All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Billardiera~macrantha (accessed 5 January 2020)