Trochocarpa montana, the Mountain Tree Heath is an Australian shrub or small tree. It occurs at high altitude from the Barrington Tops to the Dorrigo

Dorrigo, New South Wales

Dorrigo is a small town located on the Waterfall Way in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is approximately 580 kilometres north of the state capital, Sydney via the Pacific Highway, and 60 kilometres from the coastal city of Coffs Harbour. The town is situated on the Dorrigo Plateau near the...

 region of northern 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...

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The habitat is above 1000 metres above sea level in cool temperate rainforest

Rainforest

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

, usually dominated by Antarctic Beech

Nothofagus moorei

Nothofagus moorei, is an important Gondwana relict of the rainforests of the southern hemisphere. It occurs in wet, fire free areas at high altitude in eastern Australia....

 or Sassafras

Doryphora sassafras

Doryphora sassafras, commonly known as Sassafras, Yellow-, Canary- or Golden sassafras, or Golden Deal, is a species of evergreen tree of the family Atherospermataceae native to the subtropical and temperate rainforests of eastern New South Wales and Queensland, Australia...

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Description

A small tree or shrub. The crooked trunk can be up to 30 cm in diameter, slightly flanged at the base. Often seen a few metres tall, but it can grow to ten metres. The bark is thin, mottled brown, pinkish or fawn in colour. Bark is in scaly patterns. The underbark is much darker in colour.

Leaves alternate, not particularly grouped at the ends of the branchlets as seen in Trochocarpa laurina

Trochocarpa laurina

Trochocarpa laurina is an Australian shrub or small tree. It occurs from near Bermagui in southern coastal New South Wales to the Wet Tropics in Queensland. It grows at the summit of Mount Bellenden Ker, which has an average annual rainfall of 8312 mm. The minimum annual rainfall requirement is...

. Leaves not toothed, elliptic, 1.5 to 7 cm long, 0.4 to 2.5 cm wide, pointed at the tip. Glossy green both sides, paler beneath. Five parallel veins on the leaf, venation more evident under the leaf. New leaves red. Leaf stalks 2 to 3 mm long, hairy.

Small creamy brown flowers appear on spikes from March to July. The fruit is a small flattened 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...

; blue to purplish black in colour, maturing from November to February. Within the 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...

 of the 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...

 is a ten ribbed bony endocarp, each of the ten cells within contains a seed.