Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Rhagodia candolleana subsp. candolleana

Stem with female flowers. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Ben Boyd National Park near Eden

Flowering stems. Photographer Steve Burrows, Bournda National Park south of Tathra

Fruiting stem. Photographer Don Wood, near Pambula

Shrub. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Ben Boyd National Park north of Eden

Common name

Sea Berry Saltbush

Family

Chenopodiaceae

Where found

Shrubland, coastal cliffs, and beaches. Mainly coastal.

Notes

Shrub to 5 m high. Fruit fleshy. Branches striate, young branches with inflated hairs that often collapse and form a mealy layer on the surface. Leaves opposite each other or alternating up the stems, 1–3.5 cm long, 3-20 mm wide, upper surface hairless, shining green, lower surface greyish and scaly, rarely both surfaces scaly or becoming hairless, tips pointed to blunt, bases sometimes with pointed lobes. Male and female flowers on different plants, occasionally flowers bisexual. Flowers densely mealy on the outer surface of the 'petals', with 5 'petals' each about 1mm long, shortly united at the base. Flowers in sparse to dense pyramidal branched clusters to 15 cm long. Fruit red to purple, surrounded at the base with reddish fleshy enlarged 'petals', about 5 mm in diameter.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Rhagodia~candolleana  (accessed 4 February, 2021)