Phaleria clerodendron.
In Family Thymelaeaceae Scented Daphne, from N. E. Queensland are occasionally seen in Brisbane.
They are usually a large shrub 3 to 5 m high but can be a tree up to 10 m.
There are often multiple stems and the base may be buttressed.
The simple dark green mostly opposite leaves are on a petiole up to 1.5 cm long.
The elliptic (ovate) blade is up to 20 cm long by 4 to 7 cm wide.
The base is wedge-shaped and the tip pointed with concave sides.
Inflorescences are mostly on the bare trunk and branches (caulifery) sometimes hidden by the dense foliage.
Some are terminal or in the leaf axils.
They are mostly small clusters of around 7 flowers on a stalk or peduncle up to 12 mm long.
There are bracts at the base of the peduncle and a whorl of 4 involucral bracts at the top.
Bracts may have a few hairs on the midvein on the inner surface.
Flowers are on no stalk or one under 1 mm long.
The tubular white flowers, up to 4 cm long have no petals.
They have a funnel-shaped hypanthium of fused sepal bases with the sepal lobes on the rim.
The 4 (3 to 6) ovate sepal lobes are under 1 cm long.
They have microscopic hairs on the outer surface and they curve back.
There are 8 stamens with 4 inserted at the top of the tube and the second whorl just below.
Some or all extend past the sepal lobes.
The superior ovary has 2 locules each with 1 ovule but usually only 1 develops.
The style has a spherical stigma.
The fruit are spherical, sometimes laterally compressed drupes 2 to 5 cm long.
Maturing from green to bright red they have 1 (2) seeds.
J.F.
