Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, ACT

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, ACT

Common Name

Pale Apple-berry, Sweet Apple-berry

Family

Pittosporaceae

Notes

Shrubby or perennial twiner or scrambler, to 3m tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, 3-7.5cm long, 3-17mm wide, flat, hairless to sparsely hairy, the margins usually turned down.  Flowers white to cream, or pale to greenish yellow, sometimes suffused with purple or entirely purple, older flowers often with reddish mauve to purple blotches or stripes. Flowers bell-shaped with 5 lobes, in open groups of up to 12 flowers subtended by paired leaf-like bracts at the tops of the stems or branchlets.  Fruit green.

Differs from Billardiera cymosa ssp. pseudocymosa in that the flowers are white or greenish yellow.

Description and photo of flowers and leaves in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 342

eFlora of South Australia description:  http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/cgi-bin/speciesfacts_display.cgi?form=speciesfacts&name=Billardiera_versicolor