Phylica paniculata Willd.

A much branched shrub of about 2 m in height, or a tree up to 6 m high with a stem up to 25 cm thick. Branchlets slender, clothed with short, grey tomentum. Leaves crowded or widely spaced, mostly 1-1.5 cm long, up to 3 cm long: lamina erect-spreading, varying from linear to lanceolate, ovate, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, acute, rounded or subcordate at base, with revolute margins covering the lower surface in varying degree from the edges to the midrib but usually covering less than half of the lower surface; upper surface more or less convex, minutely scabrid or closely and minutely tubercled over the whole area, at first lightly covered with short, grey tomentum, often with impressed midrib and secondary nerves: petiole 1.75-2 mm long. Flowers 1.5-2.5 mm long, shortly stipitate, covered with short, grey tomentum on the outer surface, glabrous on the inner, in short spikes assembled m panicles, or in pedunculate or subsessile, capituliform spikes arising m the axils of the upper leaves and assembled in panicles or solitary at the ends of the branchlets. Bracts foliaceous, or the upper much reduced and differing from the leaves. Bracteoles 2, occasionally present, minute, linear-lanceolate. Calyx-tube broadly cyathiform, filled with a fleshy disc having a free outer margin. Sepals 0.75-1 mm long, ovate, acute, flattened, with a raised midrib on the inner surface, gibbous at the apex. Petals inserted at the mouth of the tube, about 0-5 mm long: lamina cucullate, orbicular: claw as long, cuneate. Anthers 1-celled. Ovary obconic. Style short, conical, with 3 small, erect stigmatic lobes. Fruit 6-7 mm long, obovate-rotundate, glabrous when mature, dark chestnut-brown, with a large or small depressed area on the summit.