Steganthera ilicifolia A.C.Sm.

Shrub or small tree to 12 m; young branches with strigose or silky appressed hairs. Leaves chartaceous, elliptic, lanceolate to broadly elliptic, 5.5-21 by 2-8.5 cm, base obtuse rounded or truncate, apex with a long or short acute apiculum, margin with prominent, remote denticulations, or with few minute teeth or entire, at first often covered with silky appressed hairs, becoming glabrous or retaining some indumentum, especially on the midrib below, nerves and reticulations prominent on the lower surface; petiole 5-15 mm, strigose or becoming gla-brous. Monoecious. Inflorescences axillary, supra-axillary or terminal, 4-6.5 mm long, either solitary few-flowered pleiochasia, or groups of a few pleiochasia, rachis and branches with strigose hairs, minute linear bracts below or on the branches (and also sometimes on the receptacles), rachis slender with a long peduncle before the first branching, branches opposite or subopposite, singly or in clusters and themselves branching. Male receptacle spherical c. 2-3 mm ø, slightly strigose outside; tepals 4, rounded; stamens 4, c. 1.25-2 mm long, with short, gla-brous or minutely pubescent filaments. Female receptacle larger and slightly flatter than the male, c. 4-5 mm ø at anthesis, ostiole minute; tepals 4, minute or obsolete, inner surface pilose; carpels c. 10-20, 1.5-2.5 mm long, ovary pilose, style awl-shaped, glabrous. Fruiting receptacle only slightly enlarged, with hairs between the subsessile or more usually stipitate drupes (stipe occasionally to 5 mm long). Drupes ovoid, c. 12 by 9 mm when dry, verruculose and slightly pilose.

A straggling understorey shrub or small tree in lower mountain forest (often with Nothofagus and Castanopsis) or in thickets at the forest margin. Frequent along the central mountains usually above 1200 m to as high as 3250 m (but rather lower in Central Prov.).

Uses. Provides stakes for general purposes, e.g. for house-building, for digging sticks and firewood.