Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Purple apple-berry

(Billardiera longiflora)

galery
en

Description

Billardiera longiflora, the purple apple-berry, is a small Australian vine found in cool, moist forests from southern New South Wales to Tasmania, where it is native. It was described by French botanist Jacques Labillardière in 1805. The slender leafed vine has greenish-yellow flowers and shiny purple fruit.The fruit is edible. It is classified within the family Pittosporaceae and the genus Billardiera. This vine is an evergreen climber that tends to twine up around the shrubby under-story of forests with a maximum height of ten meters on tall trees. It can be recognised by its narrow, elliptical shape and dark green leaves.These tend to range in length between 2–5 centimeters. The stems are woody, brown in colour and wiry. The fleshy fruit can also clearly be identified by their shiny nature, electric purple/blue colour and apple shaped berries that hang down amid the dark green foliage.On Mount Wellington in Tasmania, some fruit have also been found to be white in colour. The tubular shaped flowers are pale yellow, purplish or green in colour with a length of 2.5 centimeters. Each flower is solitary, has five petals that are attached by delicate hairs, five sepals, stamens and up to five fused carpels. They are pleasantly scented and generally prominent in the months of October, November, December and January. Billardiera longiflora are most commonly found in wet sclerophyll forests up to 900 meters above sea level. These forests are often found in southern Tasmania. The key characteristics of their preferred habitat include being positioned in forest understories, having access to shade and moist soil. They can survive and grow in most Tasmanian habitats aside from the driest of environments. Billardiera longiflora is native to South-Eastern Australia and grows in the understory of moist forests. This includes New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. The distribution of this vine is mostly widespread in Tasmania and for further information, The Atlas of Living Australia provides a map of occurrences. Within Tasmania, it can be found in the following municipals: Break O'Day, Brighton, Burnie, Central Coast, Central Highlands, Circular Head, Derwent Valley, Devonport, Dorset, Flinders Island, Florentine Valley, Georgetown, Glamorgan-Spring Bay, Glenorchy, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kentish, King Island, Kingborough, Latrobe, Launceston, Meander Valley, Northern Midlands, Sorell, Southern Midlands, Waratah-Wynyard, West Coast, West Tamar.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum:
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order:Apiales
Family:Pittosporaceae
Genus:Billardiera
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