Ardisia brevipedata F.Muell.

Mueller, F.J.H. von (1868) Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 6: 163. Type: Rockingham Bay, 16 October `868, Dallachy s.n.

Rambling Spearflower

Occasionally grows into a small tree but usually flowers and fruits as a shrub 1-4 m tall.

Leaves spirally arranged. Leaf blades about 16.5-20 x 4.5 cm, petioles about 0.7-0.8 cm long. Venation not obvious on either the upper or lower surface of the leaf blades. Oil dots mainly elongate, reddish in colour.

Peduncles about 5-10 mm long. Pedicels about 4-10 mm long. Flowers about 3 mm diam. Calyx and petals translucent green marked by reddish-brown oil glands. Calyx tube about 1.5 mm long, lobes about 0.5 mm long. Petals about 2.5 mm long. Anthers narrowly triangular in outline, about 1.5 mm long, filaments about 0.5 mm long. Style about 1.5-2.5 mm long. Ovules 3, 1 per locule.

Pedicels slender. Calyx 5-lobed, persistent at the base of the fruit. Fruits depressed globular, 8-13 mm diam. Seeds longitudinally striated, about 5-6 mm diam.

Cotyledons linear, about 5-7 x 1-2 mm, oil dots reddish. First pair of leaves with numerous, red, elongated oil dots. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf oil dots red and numerous with elongated oil dots usually visible at least close to the midrib. Lateral veins forming loops inside the blade margin. Petiole winged. Terminal bud, petiole and stem clothed in short, erect, red, glandular hairs. Seed germination time 138 to 194 days.

Endemic to Queensland, occurs in NEQ from the Bloomfield-Windsor Tableland area southwards as far as Paluma. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 1400 m. Grows as an understory plant in well developed lowland, upland and mountain rain forest.