Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Coprosma quadrifida

Male flowers and leaves. Photographer Lorraine Phelan, near Heywood, Vic

Female flowers and leaves. Photographer Lorraine Phelan, near Heywood, Vic

Fruiting stems. Photographer Don Wood, Monga National Park

Common name

Family

Rubiaceae

Where found

Forest, woodland, shrubland, and damp sites, particularly along streams and in gullies. Coast and mountainous areas

Notes

Shrub to 5 m high. Side branches often spiny. Fruit fleshy. Bark brownish grey, scaly. Branchlets hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves opposite each other, crowded, 0.2–1.5 cm long, 2–5 mm wide, hairless, tips blunt to somewhat pointed. Male and female flowers on different plants, cream or greenish to greenish mauve, funnel-shaped  (males) or tubular (females), the tube or funnel 3-4 mm long, with  4-6 lobes, the lobes longer than the tube. Flowers single. Flowers Aug.–Jan. Fruit orange to dark red, globular to oval, 4-8 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=Coprosma~quadrifida (accessed 7 January, 2021)