Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Pisonia umbellifera

Flower. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer B Jago, Australian Tropical Rainforest key, unknown place

Flowers and leaf. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Royal Botanic Gardens Mt Annan, near Campbelltown

Fruit. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Royal Botanic Gardens Mt Annan, near Campbelltown

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney

Common name

Birdlime tree

Family

Nyctaginaceae

Where found

Rainforest and wet gullies. Coast and ranges north from Jervis Bay.

Notes

Shrub or tree to 6 m tall. Bark smooth, with shallow wrinkles or ridges and furrows on older specimens. Young stems hairy, becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, opposite each other, clustered, or pseudo-whorled, 6-30 cm long (to 50 cm long on juvenile plants), 40-150 mm wide, soft, hairless. Flowers fragrant, mostly bisexual, sometimes unisexual, 2.5–10 mm long, with a green tube and 10 white, cream, yellowish, or pinkish lobes. Flowers in many-flowered branched clusters. Fruits pink to purple or black when ripe, sticky, 20-50 mm long. Fruits stick to feeding birds and can cause their death.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Pisonia~umbellifera (accessed 1 February, 2021)