Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Diospyros fasciculosa (F.Muell.) F.Muell.


Shrub (woody or herbaceous, 1-6 m tall)
Tree
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Male flowers. © CSIRO
Leaves and Flowers. © CSIRO
Fruit. © G. Sankowsky
Leaves and fruit. © G. Sankowsky
K. male flower; L. dissected male flower showing stamens and pistillode; M. female flower; N. infructescence. © Queensland Government.
Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO
10th leaf stage. © CSIRO
Cotyledon stage, epigeal germination. © CSIRO
Family

Mueller, F.J.H. von (1867) Intercolonial Exhibition Essays (1866-67) No. 5 Australian vegetation : 35.

Common name

Clustered Persimmon; Ebony; Ebony, Grey; Long Tom; Grey Ebony

Stem

Tree to 20 m, seldom exceeding 30 cm dbh. A thin red layer may occur between the inner and outer blaze.

Leaves

Leaf blades about 6-19 x 2.5-7 cm, petioles about 0.5-1.0 cm long, flat to slightly grooved on the upper surface. glands sparsely scattered. Lateral veins 6-10, curving but not forming distinct loops. Oil dots visible with a lens.

Flowers

Male inflorescence axes usually 3-12 in axillary fascicles, each axis branched with 3-10 flowers; calyx shallowly 3-4-lobed, sparsely clothed in pale appressed hairs; corolla campanulate, tube 2-2.5 mm long, glabrous, lobes 3-4; stamens 8-16(-20), fused at base in pairs, and fused at base to corolla tube; pistillode 0.5-0.75 mm long, glabrous. Female flowers 3-10 in a fascicle; calyx 3-4-lobed; corolla with 3-4 lobes; tube 2-2.5 mm long; staminodes 0-4; ovary 2-3 mm long, 6-locular.

Fruit

Fruits seated on a three or 4-lobed persistent glabrous calyx appressed to base of fruit. Fruits glabrous, +/- globular, about 10-15 mm diam., 4-6-seeded, seeds 10-11 mm long. Testa brown to orange brown. Cotyledons much wider than the radicle.

Seedlings

Cotyledons ovate, about 25-28 x 11-13 mm, petioles very short. Roots dark brown to black. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade usually obovate, oil dots visible with a lens from the upper surface of the leaf blade, not visible from below. Roots black. Seed germination time 204 days.

Distribution and Ecology

Occurs in CYP, NEQ, CEQ and southwards as far as north eastern New South Wales. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 500 m. Usually grows in drier rain forest but also found in beach forest and gallery forest. Also occurs in Malesia, New Caledonia and Fiji.

Natural History & Notes

Food plant for the larval stages of the Cephenes Blue Butterfly. Common & Waterhouse (1981).

Synonyms
Ebenus fasciculosa (F.Muell.) Kuntze, Revisio Generum Plantarum 2: 408(1891). Maba fasciculosa F.Muell., Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 5: 163(1865), Type: Ad flumen Tweed, C. Moore; ad ripas aestui salino expositas fluminis Brisbanes River, F.M., W. Hill; in montibus ad Rockingham, Thozet. Maba laxiflora Benth., Flora Australiensis 4: 290(1868), Type: Queensland. Rockhampton, Oshanesy.
RFK Code
669
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