Myoporum insulare R.Br.
Australian ngaio
Large shrub or small tree with numerous branches from base, generally with dense bushy habit. Bark smooth. Lf buds green and ± viscid when fresh, often drying black. Petiole c. 1 cm long, scarcely distinct from attenuate base of lamina. Lamina 4-12 × 1.25-3 cm, elliptic or narrowly elliptic, thick and semi-succulent, finely dotted with pellucid glands, mostly serrulate in the upper 1/2, occasionally entire or, especially in juvenile lvs, more extensively serrulate or serrate; apex mostly acute. Fls 1-few; pedicels c. 5 mm long at anthesis. Calyx c. 3 mm long, lobed nearly to base; lobes lanceolate-acuminate. Corolla 7-8 mm diam.; lobes > tube, rounded, white with fine purple dots, white-bearded inside towards base. Style hairy. Drupe c. 6 mm diam., broad-oblong or broad-ovoid (almost as wide as long), shining deep purple.
N.; S.: coastal areas, especially along the E. side of both islands and around Wellington.
Temperate Australia, Lord Howe Id 1978
Sandy sites behind beaches.
FL Sep-Jun.
Poisonous (Connor 1977).
A fl. of Australian ngaio is illustrated in Fig. 85. The sp. is rarely properly naturalised, but often has the appearance of being wild because it is planted in remote places. The rounded, dense bushes of Australian ngaio or Tasmanian ngaio make good windbreaks and are often preferred to the indigenous M. laetum for this purpose; in fact over long stretches of coastline planted M. insulare has replaced M. laetum. M. insulare is a very variable sp. in Australia but in N.Z. it is fairly uniform and may have originated from one area, probably Tasmania, although specimens from Lord Howe Id very closely resemble wild N.Z. plants. This sp. was formerly known as M. serratum in N.Z.
