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

Flowers and leaves (ssp. platycarpum). Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Flowers and leaves (ssp. platycarpum). Photo: Michelle Brown, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Unripe fruit and leaves (ssp. platycarpum). Photo: Don Wood, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Tree (ssp. platycarpum). Photo: Michelle Brown, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Bark of old tree (ssp. platycarpum). Photo: Michelle Brown, Scotia Sanctuary, NSW

Common Name

Sugarwood; False Sandalwood

Family

Scrophulariaceae

Notes

Tree or shrub to 10m tall.  Leaves alternating up the stems, 2.5-9.5cm long, 3-14mm wide, flat, hairless, sparsely toothed, with a curved or straight point.  Young leaves often sticky.  Flowers white, rarely pink to mauve, usually with purple, brown, or orange-yellow spots, tubular, with 4-6 lobes, in groups of 2-12 on short stalks arising from the bases of the leaves.  Fruit initially green and fleshy, dry when ripe. Family Myoporaceae in SA.

In Myoporum platycarpum ssp. platycarpum the flower lobes are shorter than the flower tube, the branches of the mature tree are bendy, and the remnants on the branches after leaves and/or flowers have fallen form distinct knobs

In Myoporum platycarpum ssp. perbellum the flower lobes are equal to or longer than the flower tube, the branches of the mature tree are not bendy, and the remnants on the branches after leaves and/or flowers have fallen are not knob-like. Relatively common in SW NSW.

Differs from Myoporum acuminatum and Myoporum montanum in that the ripe fruit is dry.

Differs from Myoporum acuminatum in that the upper and lower surfaces of the leaves are the same colour.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 616

PlantNET description with line drawings and photos of dried specimens (both subspecies):  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Myoporum~platycarpum