Alyxia ilicifolia

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:         Native Holly

• Also, Chain Fruit; Holly, Native

Conservation status: Least concern

Etymology:   

• Ilicifolia: Latin epithet that means ilex (holly) leaved

Flowers:      

•  Flowers about 8-12 mm diameter

• Sepals about 1.5-5.5 mm long, glabrous

• Corolla tube about 6.5-10 mm long, glabrous on the outer surface, sparsely pubescent about the throat on the inner surface, lobes about 3-7 mm long

• Anthers about 1-1.5 x 0.4-0.5 mm, filaments about 0.3-0.4 mm long

• Ovary hairy at least towards the apex and could be classed as syncarpous or apocarpous

• Stigma hairy, mitriform        

• Fruit:                            

• Fruit sometimes moniliform

• Fruiting carpels or beads, about 11-23 x 6-12 mm

• Style persistent at the apex

• Seed longitudinally ribbed on the outer surface

•  Embryo almost as long as the seed

• Cotyledons long and narrow, longer than the radicle

Leaves:         

• Twigs and petioles produce a milky exudate

• Leaves in whorls of three or four

• Leaf blades variable in size, up to 15 x 5 cm, petioles short, about 0.2 cm long

• Lateral veins about 45-50 on each side of the midrib

• Margins of the leaf blades +/- thickened

Stem & branches: 

• Growing to 4 m tall in rainforest

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A shrub 2-3 m tall but occasionally grows to about 5 m

Habitat:   

• Grows as an understory plant in well developed upland and mountain rain forest 

• Often on soils derived from granite

• Altitudinal range from 600-1300 m

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to Queensland in Australia

Additional notes:     

• Seedlings

  • Stem and hypocotyl clothed in short, stiff, prickle-like hairs

  • First pair of leaves with toothed margins, holly-like (Ilex aquifolium)

  • At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade about 40 x 20 mm, sessile, stiff, apex subulate, midrib depressed on the upper surface

  • Margin undulate and with 7-10 rigid, pungent, holly-like teeth on each side of the leaf blade

  • Venation almost perpendicular to the midrib. Leaves, twigs and petioles produce a milky exudate

  • Seed germination time 136 to 201 days

Sources of information:

• Lucid: https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/entities/alyxia_ilicifolia.htm (Jan 2024)

• Queensland Government: https://apps.des.qld.gov.au/species-search/details/?id=8355 (Jan 2024)