Diospyros pluviatilis Jessup

Jessup, L.W. (2014) Austrobaileya 9(2): 182-183. Type: Queensland. Cook District: Souita Falls - Middle Brook Creek Road, SE of Millaa Millaa, 11 November 1992, J.G. Tracey 15551.

Ebony

Usually flowers and fruits as a shrub about 1-3 m tall.

Terminal buds and young shoots clothed in pinkish basifixed hairs. Leaf blades about 7.5-16 x 3-5.5 cm. Glands small and sparsely scattered on undersurface. Lateral veins 9-13, forming fairly definite loops inside the blade margin.

Floral bracts two, persistent. Calyx clothed in pink or yellowish hairs on the outer surface. Corolla clothed in pink hairs on the outer surface. Male inflorescence cauline, in fascicles of 5-20 flowers. Male flowers:  Flowers about 4 mm long; calyx tube 1-1.5 mm long, lobes (2-) 3, lobes 1-2 mm long; corolla tube 1.5-2 mm long, lobes 3, lobes 1.5-2 mm long; stamens 3 or 4, glabrous, attached to the base of the pistillode. Pistillode densely clothed in pink hairs. Female flowers: 1-3 together; much longer than the male flowers; calyx tube 1.2-2.4 mm, lobes (2-)3, lobes 2-2.5 mm long; corolla tube 2-2.5 mm long, lobes 3, lobes 2.4-2.6 mm long; staminodes absent; ovary clothed in prostrate, pink, red or white hairs; base of the ovary green; 3-locular, ovules 2 per locule; stigma green.

Fruiting calyx tri-lobed, scarcely appressed to base of fruit, lobes spreading or recurved; fruit globose, about 10-15 mm long, 9-13 mm wide; seeds 8-10 mm long; cotyledons much wider but only half the length of the radicle.

Cotyledons elliptic to ovate, obtuse at the base, about 17-25 x 12-14 mm, petiole short. Cataphylls often present above the cotyledons. First pair of true leaves obovate. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade about 75 x 25 mm, glabrous on the upper surface, petiole about 3 mm long, channelled on the upper surface. Terminal buds and young shoots clothed in pinkish hairs. Seed germination time 24 to 53 days.

Endemic to NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 750 m. Grows as an understory shrub in undisturbed well developed lowland and upland rain forest.

Diospyros sp. Millaa Millaa (L.W. Jessup 515)  [Provisional Phrase Name].