Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Duranta erecta
Common name
Sky Flower
Family
Verbenaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, shrubland, pastures, disturbed sites, waste areas, roadsides, moist or wet areas, and along streams. Coast and ranges north from the Wollongong area.
Notes
Introduced shrub to 7 m high. Fruit fleshy. Often at least some pairs of spines along the stems, one located at the base of each of paired leaf stalks. Branches often drooping or trailing. Young stems sparsely appressed hairy. Leaves opposite each other, occasionally in whorls of three, 1.5-9 cm long, 12-60 mm wide, almost hairless, margins entire or coarsely toothed, tips blunt or pointed. Flowers fragrant. Flowers mauve, blue, or white, occasionally purple, 9–18 mm long, tubular, with 5 lobes. Flowers in many-flowered elongated clusters 5–30 cm long. Flowering mostly summer-autumn. Fruit yellow to orange, round, 5-14 mm in diameter.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Duranta~erecta (accessed 12 January, 2021)
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