Pittosporum phillyreoides

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:         Willow Pittosporum

• Also, Weeping Pittosporum 

Conservation status: ...

Etymology:   

Flowers

Fruit:                            

Leaves:         

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A shrub or small columnar tree in the Apiales order

Habitat:   

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to Australia

• The 'original true' Pittosporum phillyreoides named by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle was only native to a narrow coastal strip of northern Western Australia.

• When considered as the synonym, Pittosporum angustifolium is native across Australia in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • This species is subject to some taxonomic confusion

  • It was originally published by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle in 1824, as a species native to a narrow coastal strip of northern Western Australia, the epithet "phillyreoides" referring to a similarity with Phillyrea

  • Two more Western Australian species — P. angustifolium and P. ligustrifolium— were published over the next 15 years, and George Bentham later lumped together all three as a single species under the misspelled name P. phillyraeoides

  • These three were re-split in a 2000 classification revision. but in the 2001 ARS Systematic Botanists revision, Pittosporum phillyreoides was recombined and became a synonym for Pittosporum angustifolium

  • Neither circumscription has yet won universal acceptance

• Cultivation

  • Pittosporum phillyreoides, a name still seen used in the plant nursery trade, is cultivated as an ornamental tree for planting in gardens

  • It has a somewhat columnar growth with weeping form and foliage texture, and is drought tolerant once established

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittosporum_phillyreoides (2023)