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

Ebenaceae

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.