These orange fruits with black seeds caught my eye as I was walking up the path beside the Students' Union building. The orange colour isn't a fleshy aril, but simply the inside of the capsule, and it serves to highlight the sticky black seeds. Is it a mimic of other plants that present black seeds on a fleshy orange or red structure (podocarps, Alectryon, Ixerba)? If so, it's getting its seeds dispersed for the small cost of a bit of orange pigment instead of the energy rich epimatium of a podocarp or aril of Alectryon or Ixerba.
There were tuis nearby making quite a racket, but they were disputing in a flowering P. crassifolium tree that was interleaved with a flowering puriri (Vitex lucens), so it was more likely nectar they were interested in.
The epithet cornifolium is a reference to the leaves of the dogwoods, Cornus, which are also in whorls of four. Here's Cornus canadensis in the grounds of the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.
Thanks for sharing informative post. Pittosporum is a perfect hedging plant variety that helps in screening your home or commercial places.Some of its varieties include Pittosporum Silver Sheen & Pittosporum Green Pillar.
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