Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Antidesma ghaesembilla Gaertn.

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Female flowers [not vouchered]. © G. Sankowsky

Male flowers. © R.L. Barrett

Leaves and fruit. CC-BY Australian Tropical Herbarium

Fruit. © R.L. Barrett

Leaves, fruit and bark. © R.L. Barrett

Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO

10th leaf stage. © CSIRO

Cotyledon stage, Epigeal germination. © CSIRO

Family

Phyllanthaceae

Gaertner, J. (1788) De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum 1: 189. Type: Ghaesembilla zeylon. E collect. sem. hort. lugdb.

Common name

Black Currant Tree; Onjam; Koontjir; Dempool; Blackcurrant

Stem

Often short-boled and poorly formed. Bark dark in colour. Often flowering and fruiting as a shrub.

Leaves

Leaf blades about 4-6 x 2-3.5 cm. Lateral veins curving but not forming very distinct loops inside the blade margin. Twig lenticels pale. Stipules filiform, pubescent. Domatia are tufts of hair.

Flowers

Male and female flowers about 1 mm diam. Disk pubescent in both male and female flowers.

Fruit

Fruits small, about 4-5 mm long. Persistent calyx not disk-like.

Seedlings

Cotyledons elliptic, about 8 x 5 mm. At the tenth leaf stage: petioles hairy; stipules filiform, 1-2 mm long, hairy. Seed germination time 28 to 29 days.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in WA, NT, CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 600 m. Grows in gallery forest, monsoon forest and closed forest often on heavy soils subject to water-logging during the wet season. Also occurs in Asia and Malesia.

Natural History & Notes

The rather acid fruits are eaten by children. Corner (1988).

Synonyms

Antidesma ghaesembilla var. genuinum Mull.Arg., Prodromus 15(2.: 251(1866). Antidesma ghaesembilla Gaertn. var. ghaesembilla, Prodromus 15(2.: 251(1866). Antidesma schultzii Benth., Flora Australiensis 6: 86(1873), Type: N. Australia. Port Darwin, Schultz, n. 610, 743.

RFK Code

910

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