Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Discaria nitida
Common name
Leafy anchor plant, Shining anchor plant
Family
Rhamnaceae
Where found
Woodland, grassland, rocky situations usually near small waterfalls, and along streams. Kosciuszko National Park.
Notes
Deciduous shrub to 5.5 m high. Stems hairless. Younger branches with paired spines 8–18 mm long. Spines shed from older stems. Spines and stems greyish brown except in the current season’s growth, which is green. Leaves opposite each other, 1–2.5 cm long, 3–7 mm wide, persistent, shining, tips blunt or minutely mucronate within an apical notch, margins with minute teeth. Flowers about 2 mm long, 3 mm in diameter, bell-shaped, white, with 4-5 spreading sepals, 0 petals. Flowers clustered beneath the spines, up to 10 flowers at some nodes. Flowers November to December.
Vulnerable NSW. Provisions of the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 No 63 relating to the protection of protected plants generally also apply to plants that are a threatened species.
Endangered Vic. Listed in the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act, Vic.
Description mostly taken from NSW Threatened Species profile: http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/threatenedspeciesapp/profile.aspx?id=10233 (accessed 5 January, 2021)
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Discaria~nitida (accessed 5 January, 2021)
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