Cyclophyllum longipetalum
Encyclopedia
Cyclophyllum longipetalum, known as the Coast Canthium is a shrub or tree occurring in eastern Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Commonly seen growing in a variety of different rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 situations. From Lake Conjola in southern New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 to Fraser Island in south eastern Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

.

Description

Occasionally growing to tree size, the tallest trees are 25 metres tall and with a 50 cm trunk diameter. Often seen as a shrub growing at the edge of the eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

 rainforest ecotone
Ecotone
An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes but different patches of the landscape, such as forest and grassland. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local or regional...

.

The trunk is mostly straight, though sometimes buttressed at the base on larger trees. Bark is grey or brown, with some wrinkles, cracks or fissures. Small branches fairly thick, usually four angled (square in cross section).

Leaves

Leaves opposite on the stem, smooth edged without leaf serrations. 2 to 10 cm long, 1 to 4 cm wide. Leaf venation not particularly obvious on the upper side of the leaf. Leaves sometimes show foveolae at the leaf axils. That is (raised bumps where the lateral leaf veins branch off from the main leaf mid vein). Net veins not seen.

Flowers & fruit

Fragrant creamy golden brown flowers form from January to March. The fruit is a fleshy orange/red drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

, around 10 mm long. Seen from October to January. Within the fruit are often two seeds, one each within the two lobes of the hard capsule, surrounded by the glossy red aril.
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