Notelaea venosa
Encyclopedia
Notelaea venosa is a very common shrub or small tree in 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...

. Occurring in or adjacent to rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 from Lakes Entrance, Victoria
Lakes Entrance, Victoria
Lakes Entrance is a tourist resort and fishing port in eastern Victoria, Australia. It is situated approximately east of Melbourne, near a managed, man-made channel connecting the Gippsland Lakes to the Bass Strait. At the 2006 census, Lakes Entrance had a population of 4,094.The township was...

 (37° S) to Cunninghams Gap (27° S) 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...

. Common names include Veined Mock-olive, Smooth Mock-olive, Large-leaved Mock-olive and Large Mock-olive. Often seen in the bushland areas in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

.

Description

Usually a bushy shrub to 3 metres tall. But occasionally it be surprisingly large, up to 16 metres tall and a trunk diameter of 25 cm. The trunk is often crooked, without buttresses of flanges. Grey brown bark is fairly smooth, but sometimes with some flaky irregularities. Branchlets have small white lenticel
Lenticel
A lenticel is an airy aggregation of cells within the structural surfaces of the stems, roots, and other parts of vascular plants. It functions as a pore, providing a medium for the direct exchange of gasses between the internal tissues and atmosphere, thereby bypassing the periderm, which would...

s, otherwise pale brown, thin and round in cross section.

Leaves

Dull green, stiff, thick and superficially resembling eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...

 leaves. Leaves prominently veiny on both sides. Leaf edges entire, though sometimes slightly wavy edged. Net veins regular and uniform in pattern, contrasting to the similar Notelaea longifolia
Notelaea longifolia
Notelaea longifolia is a very common shrub or small tree in eastern Australia. Occurring in or adjacent to rainforest from Mimosa Rocks National Park to Bamaga in far north Queensland. Common names include Large Mock-olive or Long-leaved-olive. An attractive ornamental plant.- Description...

 which are more irregular and less easily seen.

Leaves 6 to 16 cm long, 2 to 4 cm wide, lanceolate to ovate lanceolate in shape. Leaf stem 5 to 15 mm long. Oil dots present but difficult to distinguish.

Flowers and Fruit

Greenish white or yellow flowers usually form between October to December on raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s. Racemes are 1 to 3 cm long with five to nine flowers. Fruit matures from April to September, but can mature at any time of the year. A dark blue or black fleshy drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

10 to 15 mm long with a single pointed seed, 8 to 12 mm long. Regeneration from fresh seed is slow.
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