Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
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.
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)
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