Atherosperma moschatum Labill.

TSO logo

Sponsor this page

For information about how you could sponsor this page, see How You Can Help

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Atherosperma moschatum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/atherosperma/atherosperma-moschatum/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Common Names

  • Black Sassafras

Other taxa in genus

    Glossary

    achene
    Small dry indehiscent fruit that has a single seed (as in e.g. Polylepis).
    androdioecious
    With only male or only hermaphrodite flowers on individual plants.
    entire
    With an unbroken margin.
    glabrous
    Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
    lanceolate
    Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
    receptacle
    Enlarged end of a flower stalk that bears floral parts; (in some Podocarpaceae) fleshy structure bearing a seed formed by fusion of lowermost seed scales and peduncle.

    References

    There are no active references in this article.

    Credits

    Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

    Recommended citation
    'Atherosperma moschatum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/atherosperma/atherosperma-moschatum/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

    An evergreen tree to 100 ft high in the wild state, aromatic in all its parts. Leaves opposite, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, 2 to 3 in. long, leathery, dark green above, greyish and glabrous or silky-hairy beneath, margins entire or with a few teeth. Flowers dioecious, creamy white, about 1 in. across with seven to ten tepals, borne singly in the leaf-axils; receptacle concave, silky-hairy inside and out; male flowers with about fifteen stamens; female flowers with several whorls of staminodes and numerous free pistils, each developing into a one-seeded fruit (achene). Bot. Mag., n.s., t. 43.

    Native of the temperate forests of Tasmania and S.E. Australia; introduced in 1824 and again by Comber in 1929. Although not common in cultivation, it is fairly hardy in a sheltered place. A specimen in woodland at the Edinburgh Botanic Garden is about 10 ft tall and flowers every year. At Caerhays Castle, Cornwall, it has reached 20 ft and there is another large specimen at Trewithen in the same county.