Abrophyllum ornans

Description

Abrophyllum ornans is a species of Magnoliopsida first described by Ferdinand von Mueller, and given the simplified Asian name by Benth. Abrophyllum ornans belongs to the genus Abrophyllum, and the family Rousseaceae. Single subspecies: A. o. microcarpum. Abrophyllum (syn.: Brachynema F.Muell.) is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Saxifragaceae sensu lato according to Engler, A. in Engler & Prantl and Schulze-Menz, G. K. in Melchior, 1964; placed in Subfamily Escallonioideae, Tribe Cuttsieae, it is closely related to Cuttsia. In the APG II system Abrophyllum is placed in family Rousseaceae. The sole species is Abrophyllum ornans. Its common name is native hydrangea, but it does not have great affinity with the true hydrangea. It is native to Australia (New South Wales and Queensland). Its habitat is warm-temperate and subtropical rainforest, especially along smaller watercourses or in gullies on poorer soils. The natural range of distribution is from the Illawarra of New South Wales to the McIlwraith Range in far north eastern Australia. Shrubs or small trees to 8 m high; leaves simple, mostly 10-20 cm long, 3-8 cm wide, alternate, large, lanceolate, long-acuminate, subserrate; without stipules, petiole 20-40 mm long. Flowers in terminal or axillary cymes, yellowish. Calyx is short (c. 2 mm long.), tubular, lobes usually 5 or sometimes 6, deciduous. Petals 4-5 mm long, usually 5 or sometimes 6, valvate, spreading, deciduous. Stamens usually 5 or sometimes 6, inserted on the margin of the inconspicuous nectary disk; anthers broad oblong; filaments very short. Gynoecium of 5 carpels, receptacle patelliform. Ovary superior, 5-locular, with numerous axile ovules, stigma sessile, 5-lobed. Fruit a small (8-12 mm long, 5-7 mm wide), oblong, dark, mainly black berries, crowned by the stigma, many-seeded; seeds small, subglobose, testa deeply latticed; embryo very small; endosperm fleshy and oily. It is also classified in Escalloniaceae (by Hutchinson 1967; Dahlgren; Thorne), Grossulariaceae (Cronquist 1988), Carpodetaceae (APG I 1998, Kubitzki 2007), Rousseaceae (APG II 2003, Shipunov 2005, Thorne & Reveal 2007 and Heywood et al. 2007), or even in its own family Abrophyllaceae Nakai (Reveal and Takhtajan 1997).