Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Diospyros pentamera (Woolls & F.Muell. ex F.Muell.) F.Muell.


Tree
Click/tap on images to enlarge
Male flowers and buds. © CSIRO
Male flowers and buds. © CSIRO
Leaves, male flowers and buds. © CSIRO
Leaves and Flowers. © CSIRO
Fruit, three views, cross section and seeds. © W. T. Cooper
A. male flower; B. dissected corolla showing stamens and pistillode, male flower; C. female flower; D. dissected corolla showing staminodes, female flower; E. dissected ovary, female flower; F. fruit. © Queensland Herbarium
Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO
Cotyledon stage, epigeal germination. © CSIRO
10th leaf stage. © CSIRO
Family

Mueller, F.J.H. von (1867) Austral. Veg.: 35.

Common name

Ebony, Myrtle; Plum, Grey; Myrtle Ebony; Grey Plum; Grey Persimmon; Black Myrtle; Grey Ebony

Stem

Tree to 35 m. Outer dead bark brown to almost black.

Leaves

Terminal buds and young shoots clothed in pale brown prostrate hairs. Leaf blades about 34-11 x 1-4 cm, much paler on the underside (yellowish green). Glands about 2-12 small, dark, scattered on the underside of the leaf blade. Lateral veins 7-11 pairs, forming a double series of loops inside the blade margin.

Flowers

Male and female flower outer surface of the calyx and corolla densely clothed in pale (calyx gold, corolla white) prostrate hairs. Male inflorescence axes solitary or a few in leaf axils, each with 3-10 flowers. Male flowers calyx tube 1.5-1.7 mm long, lobes (4-)5(-6), 1.2-1.4 mm long; corolla tube 1.5-1.7 mm long, lobes mostly 5, 3 mm long; stamens 15-20, 3.7-4.5 mm long, filaments fused at base and fused to corolla tube; pistillode ca. 1 mm long. Female flowers calyx tube 2.5-3 mm long, lobes 4 or 5, 2-2.5 mm long; corolla tube 1.5-2.2 mm long, lobes 4 or 5, 3-3.8 mm long; staminodes 10-12.

Fruit

Fruits seated on a 5-lobed sericeous persistent calyx appressed to fruit. Fruits +/- globular, about 14-18 mm long x 10-15 mm wide, 1-seeded; seeds 8-12mm long.

Seedlings

Cotyledons linear, about 10-12 x 1 mm. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade with a few scattered hairs on both the upper and lower surfaces; scattered oil dots easily seen with a lens. Seed germination time 143 days.

Distribution and Ecology

Endemic to Australia, occurs in NEQ, CEQ and southwards as far as south-eastern New South Wales. Altitudinal range in NEQ from 400-1100 m. Grows in various types of rain forest often associated with Kauri Pine (Agathis robusta).

Natural History & Notes

Fruit eaten by several species of birds. Cooper & Cooper (1994).

Synonyms
Cargillia pentamera F.Muell., Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae 4: 82(1864), Type: In insula Ash Island ad flumen Hunters River, Miss Scott, W. Woolls; ad fluvium Clarence River, H. Beckler, C. Moore, J. Wilcox. Cargillia arborea Hiern, Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 12(1) : 239(1873), Type: [Nom. inval.].
RFK Code
141
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