Phylica rigidifolia Sond.

A much branched shrub, about 60 cm high, with ascending, wiry branches. Branchlets slender, clothed with short, white, adpressed pubescence. Leaves usually closely set, 1.2-2.5 cm long: lamina ascending or erect-spreading, linear or subulate, semiterete, mucronulate, rounded at base, with closely revolute margins covering the lower surface; upper surface entirely and closely tubercled, at first clothed with adpressed, grey hairs: petiole 2-3 mm long. Inflorescence a dense, ovate or rounded panicle, about 1.5 cm long, up to 2.5 cm, less often a simple raceme. Pedicels 2-4 mm long, tomentose; the lower sometimes with bracteoles about the middle. Bracts oblong-lanceolate, tomentose on the lower surface, shorter than the pedicels. Flowers 2.5-3.75 mm long, with a dense covering of white tomentum on the outer surface: calyx-tube 0.5-1 mm deep, campanulate, lined with a rather fleshy disc: sepals 1-1.5 mm long, deltoid-ovate, acute, gibbous at the apex, with a slightly raised midrib. Petals inserted at the mouth of the tube, 0.75-1 mm long: lamina orbicular, cucullate: claw less than half as long, oblong or cuneate. Anthers 1-celled. Ovary obconic. Style together with the stigma 0.75-1.5 mm high, narrowly conical, cylindric or subulate. Fruit about 8 mm long, rotundate, glabrous, blackish, with a wide area covered by the base of the calyx.