Family: Pittosporaceae
Billardiera
Citation:
Smith, Sp. Bot. New Holl. 1:t. 1 (1793).
Synonymy: Labillardiera Schultes in Roemer & Schultes, Syst. Veg. 5:330 (1819), nom. illegit.; Marianthus Huegel ex Endl., Enum. Pl. Hügel 8 (1837); Rhytidosporum F. Muell., Pl. Indig. Col. Vic. 1:75 (1862).
Common name: Apple-berries.
Description:
Twiners or shrubs; leaves entire, lobed or toothed, alternate or sometimes fascicled.
Flowers white, yellow, mauve or blue, solitary or in few- to many-flowered corymbs; sepals free or cohering at the base; petals free or more or less connate at the base or forming a tube, tips spreading; stamens free, opening by longitudinal slits; ovary sessile or occasionally stipitate, glabrous or densely pubescent, 2- or 3-celled; placentation parietal; ovules numerous.
Fruit a coriaceous slightly flattened ovoid or oblong capsule or a 1- or 2-celled berry; seeds numerous, ovoid or globular, dark-brown or black.
Distribution:
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Endemic to Australia; 25 species in all States except N.T.
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Biology:
No text
Key to Species:
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2. Young corolla with united petals, becoming free in the lower one-third with age; leaves cordate at the base |
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B. bignoniacea 1. |
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2. Petals free; leaves not cordate at the base |
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3. Low prostrate to semi-erect shrub |
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B. procumbens 3. |
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3. Twining or scrambling plants 1-3 m tall |
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4. Sepals ovate to lanceolate, glabrous, margins ciliate, up to 6 mm long |
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B. uniflora 6. |
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4. Sepals lanceolate to linear, scattered-pubescent on the outer surface, 6 mm or more long |
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B. scandens 4. |
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1. Flowers in sessile or pedunculate cymes |
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5. Cymes pedunculate; corolla pink to mauve or deep-purple |
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B. cymosa 2. |
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5. Cymes sessile; corolla cream to yellow, suffused with purple or entirely purple |
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6. Leaves densely grey to fawn, pubescent on both surfaces |
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B. sericophora 5. |
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6. Leaves glabrous or with scattered hairs on both surfaces |
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B. versicolor 7. |
Author:
Not yet available
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