Diospyros hemicycloides (F.Muell. ex Benth.) Jessup

Jessup, L.W. (2014) Austrobaileya 9(2): 178-179.

Mountain Ebony

Tree to 18 m, often flowering and fruiting as a shrub. Outer dead bark and subrhytidome layer dark, sometimes almost black.

Midrib depressed on the upper surface. Leaf blades about 3.5-10 x 1-3 cm, much paler on the underside. Lateral veins 7-11 pairs. Glands sparse, up to 5 on each side of midvein below. Oil dots visible with a lens. Leafy twigs slender about 1-2 mm diameter.

Outer surface of the calyx sparsely clothed in pale brown hairs, outer surface of the corolla (particularly the lobes) densely clothed in pale straight and tortuous hairs. Male inflorescence axes 2-9 mm long, with 3(-4) flowers. Male flowers: calyx tube 1.5-2 mm long, lobes 3; corolla tube 2.5-3.5 mm long, lobes 3(-4); stamens 7-9 (six in the outer whorl and three in the inner whorl), not adnate to corolla tube; pistillode 1-2 mm long. Female flowers usually solitary, rarely a 3-flowered cyme; calyx tube about 2-2.5 mm long, lobes 3; corolla tube 2.5-3 mm long, lobes of similar length; ovary hairy, about 2.2-2.5 mm long; style about 0.7-1 mm long; stigmas bifid.

Fruits seated on a two or 3-lobed sparsely pubescent persistent calyx. Fruits +/- glabrous, globular-ellipsoid, about 11-14 mm diam.; seeds 8-10 mm long.

Cotyledons almost orbicular, 12-14 mm diam. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade glabrous; midrib depressed or in a groove on the upper surface of the leaf blade. Seed germination time 47 days.

Endemic to NEQ, from Mt Finnigan to the Kirrama Range. Altitudinal range from 840-1100 m. Grows in mountain rain forest.

Maba hemicycloides F.Muell. ex Benth., Flora Australiensis 4: 290 (1868), Type: Rockingham Bay, 13 August 1866, J. Dallachy s.n. Ebenus hemicycloides (F.Muell. ex Benth.) Kuntze, Revisio Generum Plantarum 2: 408 (1891). Diospyros sp. Mt Lewis (L.S.Smith 10107).