Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Notelaea ligustrina

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Fruiting stems. Photographer Don Wood, SE Forests National Park

Line drawings. with flowering branch and fruit. E Mayfield, National Herbarium of Victoria, © 2021 Royal Botanic Gardens Board

Common name

Privet Mock-olive, Silkwood, Southern Mock-olive

Family

Oleaceae

Where found

Forest, rocky slopes, and gullies. Ranges south from the Budawang Range.

Notes

Tree or shrub to 16 m high. Fruit fleshy. Bark dark brown, fissured to scaly. Young stems densely hairy, often purplish, soon becoming hairless, lenticels prominent. Buds at the bases of the leaves single, sometimes 2-3 together. Leaves opposite each other, 2–10 cm long, 4–25 mm wide, tips blunt, margins entire, thick, both surfaces dull and hairless, upper surface dark green, lower surface paler; veins on the upper surface obscure. Flowers with 4 yellow to green petals 1-1.5 mm long, more or less free from each other except joined in 2 pairs at the base. Calyx with prominent approximately triangular teeth. Flower clusters 1-3 together, each of 7-13 flowers. Flowering: January–April. Fruit white or pink to dark purple-black, round to oval,  6–12 mm long.

Was Nestegis ligustrina.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Notelaea~ligustrina(accessed 23 January, 2021)