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Kapuka

Kapuka

Overview
Griselinia littoralis, commonly known as Kapuka, is a small to medium-sized evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaves all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....

 tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 growing up to 20 m tall, though often much less, particularly in coastal exposure. It is native to New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...

, where it typically grows in coastal locations. It is widely cultivated both in New Zealand and in other areas with mild oceanic climates such as Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...

, where it is valued for its tolerance of salt
Sodium chloride
Sodium chloride, also known as salt, common salt, table salt, or halite, is an ionic compound with the formula NaCl. Sodium chloride is the salt most responsible for the salinity of the ocean and of the extracellular fluid of many multicellular organisms...

 carried on sea gales.

The leaves
Leaf
In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...

 are alternate, leathery, glossy yellow-green above, paler and matt below, 6-14 cm long, oval with a smooth margin.
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Encyclopedia
Griselinia littoralis, commonly known as Kapuka, is a small to medium-sized evergreen
Evergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaves all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....

 tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

 growing up to 20 m tall, though often much less, particularly in coastal exposure. It is native to New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...

, where it typically grows in coastal locations. It is widely cultivated both in New Zealand and in other areas with mild oceanic climates such as Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...

, where it is valued for its tolerance of salt
Sodium chloride
Sodium chloride, also known as salt, common salt, table salt, or halite, is an ionic compound with the formula NaCl. Sodium chloride is the salt most responsible for the salinity of the ocean and of the extracellular fluid of many multicellular organisms...

 carried on sea gales.

The leaves
Leaf
In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin. There is continued debate about whether the flatness of leaves evolved to expose the chloroplasts to more light or to increase the absorption of carbon dioxide. In...

 are alternate, leathery, glossy yellow-green above, paler and matt below, 6-14 cm long, oval with a smooth margin. The flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds...

s are borne on 2-5 cm long panicle
Panicle
A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches ....

s, each panicle with 50-100 individual flowers, each flower 3-4 mm across, greenish-yellow with five sepals and stamens but no petals. The fruit
Fruit
The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants disseminate seeds, and the presence of seeds indicates that a structure is most likely a fruit, though not all seeds come from...

 is a small blackish berry
Berry
The botanical definition of a berry is a simple fruit produced from a single ovary, such as a grape or a tomato. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. The flowers of these plants have a superior ovary formed by the fusion of...

.