Myoporum acuminatum, commonly known as Waterbush, Pointed Boobialla or Mangrove Boobialla, is a plant found 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...

. It grows in rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 or wet 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...

 forest near the coast, and is often associated with mangrove

Mangrove

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

s. Occasionally it is found in the drier rainforests. It grows naturally as far south as Mimosa Rocks National Park

Mimosa Rocks National Park

Mimosa Rocks is a national park in New South Wales , 329 km southwest of Sydney near the towns of Tathra and Bermagui.Mimosa Rocks National Park starts at the northern end of Tathra Beach and runs north for about 16 km...

 in far south eastern New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, and north to 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...

, the islands of the Torres Strait

Torres Strait

The Torres Strait is a body of water which lies between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea. It is approximately wide at its narrowest extent. To the south is Cape York Peninsula, the northernmost continental extremity of the Australian state of Queensland...

 and New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

.

Taxonomy

The plant first appeared in scientific literature in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae in 1810, authored by Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

. The genus name Myoporum refers to the Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 roots myein ("to shut close") and πόρος ("passage", the same root that gave "pore"), referring to these plants' ability to close the stomata and persist in drier areas. The specific epithet acuminatum refers to the pointed leaves. Common names include Boobialla, Pointed Boobialla, Waterbush and Mangrove Boobialla.

Description

Myoporum acuminatum grows as a hairless shrub or small tree, up to 13 metres (40 ft) tall and a trunk diameter of 50 cm (20 in). In larger plants the trunk may be irregular in shape with flanges. Bark is greyish brown and somewhat wrinkled in larger trees. Small branches are green and fairly thick, though smooth.

Leaves

Leaves are 5 to 14 cm long and 7 to 28 mm wide with a fine point, though rarely seen with a rounded end. The base of the leaf becomes thin near the leaf stem, which measures 6 to 20 mm long. Leaf edges may be finely toothed, or smooth. Leaves lack stipule

Stipule

In botany, stipule is a term coined by Linnaeus which refers to outgrowths borne on either side of the base of a leafstalk...

s. Oil dots of varying sizes may be seen under a magnifying lens, of a distance apart of 3 to 5 diameters. Only the midrib is easily seen, other lateral or net veins are obscure.

Flowers and fruit

Flowers appear from May to August, though later in the southern parts of its range. Flowers feature five white petals, with four rows of purple spots and a sweet scent. They grow in clusters from the leaf axils.

The fruit is a roughened, wrinkled 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...

. Globular in shape, 5 mm in diameter, blue or purple in colour. Remnants of the flower style point out of the fruit, 3 to 4 mm long and hooked. Inside are two to four seeds, maturing from October to February.

Distribution and habitat

It grows in rainforest

Rainforest

Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 or wet 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...

forest of eastern Australia, from Queensland to the far south coast of New South Wales.