Genus Trochocarpa | Family Ericaceae Subfamily Epacridoideae |
Description: Shrubs or small trees, mostly glabrous.
Leaves leathery, alternate and distichous or clustered at end of branches, with several longitudinal veins; shortly petiolate.
Flowers several together in spikes, terminal or axillary in the axils of previous year's leaves or lateral on the old wood, each flower sessile within the small subtending bract and 2 bracteoles. Sepals 5, ovate, ciliolate. Corolla cylindrical or campanulate glabrous or with reflexed hairs on the lobes and throat, lobes usually shorter than the tube, recurved. Filaments inserted at the top of the tube between the corolla lobes, partially included or exerted or recurved with the lobes. Disc truncate, lobed or spreading into 5–10 distinct scales. Ovary 10-locular, each loculus with 1 pendent ovule.
Fruit a globose drupe, mesocarp pulpy, endocarp separating or separable into 10 distinct pyrenes.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 12 species, Malesia & Australia. Australia: 7 or 8 species (endemic), Qld, N.S.W. Tas.
Text by B. Wiecek Taxon concept:
| Key to the species | |
1 | Young branches glabrous; leaves 5–8 cm long, 2–3 cm wide; petiole 3–6 mm long usually glabrous; fruit 6–8 mm diam | Trochocarpa laurina |
| Young branches with short rigid hairs; leaves 1.5–4.0 cm long, 0.6–1.5 cm wide; petiole 2–3 mm long with erect grey-brown hairs; fruit 4–6 mm diam | Trochocarpa montana |
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