Fontainea australis is a rare rainforest plant from eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. The common name is Southern Fontainea. It grows in sub tropical rainforest at low altitudes on basaltic alluvial soils. Distributed from the Wilsons River (New South Wales)

Wilsons River (New South Wales)

The Wilsons River is a river in northern New South Wales. It was formerly known as Wilsons Creek and the North Arm of the Richmond River. It flows into the Richmond River proper at Coraki. Wilsons Creek was named after William Wilson, the first settler in Lismore, in the period 1844-5. In 1976 it...

 to the Tallebudgera Valley

Tallebudgera Creek

Tallebudgera Creek is a large creek on the Gold Coast which runs from the Springbrook Plateau in the west through Tallebudgera Valley to the southern slopes of Burleigh Mountain at Burleigh Heads and the Pacific Ocean in the east...

 in south eastern Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

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Description

A shrub or small tree to 5 metres tall. Leaves are 6 to 9 cm long and 2 to 3.5 cm wide, alternate on the stem. Reverse ovate or elliptic in shape with a long leaf tip, and narrow wedge shaped at the leaf base. The leaf stalk are between 5 and 21 mm long, swollen at both ends, and somewhat channelled. Small white flowers appear on panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches; in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes....

s flowers December to January. The fruit matures in July, being a red fleshy ovate shaped capsule, 2.3 cm in diameter.