Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

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Myrsine howittiana

Common name

Brush muttonwood

Family

Primulaceae

Where found

Forest, wet forest margins, and near streams. Coast and ranges.

Notes

Shrub or tree to 20 m high. Fruit fleshy. Bark smooth, grey. Young stems rusty-hairy, soon becoming hairless. Lenticels prominent on older stems. Buds at the tips of the stems densely hairy with rusty red hairs. Leaves alternating up the stems, 3.3–13 cm long, 10–45 mm wide, margins wavy and transparent, entire at maturity, often irregularly toothed when young, upper surface shiny and dark green, lower surface duller and paler, veins faint, tips rounded or broadly pointed; leaf stalks 7–20 mm long. Flowers appear bisexual, though functioning as male and female flowers on different plants. Flowers greenish-white to cream, 2-3.5 mm long, with 4-5 petals fused at the base. Flowers in clusters of 5–10 flowers, the clusters often running into each other. Flowers autumn-summer. Fruit blue, mauve, or whitish, 5–7 mm in diameter.

Family was Myrsinaceae.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Myrsine~howittiana (accessed 28 January, 2021)