Christmas Bells

Christmas Bells
Christmas Bells - Blandfordia nobilis

Monday, April 29, 2013

Local Lilly Pilly tree, flowers, fruit

The local Lilly Pilly was known as Acmena smithii when I moved to Robertson. Unfortunately, it is now back with the difficult-to-spell Syzygium tribe, so it is now Syzygium smithii (though PlantNET does not seem to realise it).

The local plants normally have creamy white fruit, but some (few) have pale pinkish/purple fruit. None of the local plants have the strongly coloured Lilly Pilly fruit typical of most of the other members of that genus.

Here is a shot of a single tree, at my friends' property Cloud Farm. There is a large Eucalypt behind the Lilly Pilly. The dense, dark green leaves and white buds and flowers are the give-away.


Syzygium smithiitree at Cloud Farm
 Here are the flowers (taken in December 2011).
Syzygium smithii Buds and open flowers.
These small flowers show some structural similarity
to Eucalypt flowers.
But they lack the distinctive "cap" of Eucalypts.

Typical creamy-white fruit of the local Lilly Pilly plants
Fresh fruit (taken two days ago)
Syzygium smithiiThese fruit are on the same tree as the buds and flowers
But the photos are two years apart.
But the months are characteristic
December for flowering
Late April/May for fruiting.
There is just a bit of pinkish spotting on these fruit.

This tree, being overlooking the escarpment, and hence warmer than Robertson proper, fruits just a little earlier than the best stands of local Lilly Pilly trees on Fountaindale Road, and at Tony and Anna's place.
Leaves of Syzygium smithii



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