Maytenus silvestris is a shrub or small tree growing from Picton, New South Wales

Picton, New South Wales

Picton is a small town in the Macarthur Region of New South Wales, Australia, in the Wollondilly Shire. The town is located 80 kilometres South-west of Sydney, close to Camden and Campbelltown. It is also the administrative centre of Wollondilly Shire....

 (34° S) near Kroombit Tops, near Gladstone, Queensland

Gladstone, Queensland

- Education :Gladstone has several primary schools, three high schools, and one university campus, Central Queensland University. It is also home to CQIT Gladstone Campus.- Recreation :...

 (23° S). It occurs in dry rainforest, 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...

 and rainforest ecotone

Ecotone

An ecotone is a transition area between two biomes but different patches of the landscape, such as forest and grassland. It may be narrow or wide, and it may be local or regional...

 areas. Common names include Narrow Leaved Orangebark, Orange Bush and Orange Bark.

Description

Commonly seen as a densely dark green shrub two metres tall, though it can occasionally attain heights of 10 to 15 metres with a trunk diameter of 25 cm thick. The trunk is crooked and misshapen but without buttresses. Outer bark greyish brown or grey, fairly smooth but with 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. The other part of live bark is green, brown and reddish. The exposed bark gives the common name, "Orange Bark".

Leaves are 10 to 80 mm long, 2 to 13 mm wide, narrow lanceolate to ovate in shape. Leaf edges are curved over, sometimes with toothed edges, other times entire. Leaf tip sometimes curved. The leaf base slowly tapers away with a thin beginning of the leaf. Leaf stalks 2 to 5 mm long. Leaf venation evident on both sides, 5 to 8 pairs of lateral veins. Leaflets with 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, slender and smooth in shape, dark reddish brown or grey. New shoots downy.

Flowers & fruit

Pale green flowers form 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 from the leaf axils. Either singly, or in twos or threes. Flowering usually from October to January, though sometimes as late as Easter. The fruit is an orange capsule, roundish in shape. 3 to 7 mm in diameter. The capsule splits in two, with one to four glossy brown seeds, enclosed in an orange fleshy aril

Aril

An aril is any specialized outgrowth from the funiculus that covers or is attached to the seed. It is sometimes applied to any appendage or thickening of the seed coat in flowering plants, such as the edible parts of the mangosteen and pomegranate fruit, the mace of the nutmeg seed, or the...

. Seeds egg shaped, 4 to 5 mm long. Fruit matures from February to May. Seed germination is quite reliable, with germination complete after 42 days.