Ovidia andina (Poepp. & Endl.) Meissn.

A deciduous shrub, often of spare habit, up to 7 ft high; shoots downy when quite young. Leaves oblanceolate to narrowly elliptical or oval, bluntish or rounded at the apex, tapered to a stalkless base, 1 to 5 in. long, 1⁄2 to 1 in. wide, dull grey green and glabrous above, glaucous and furnished with appressed hairs beneath. Flowers produced in July along with and terminating the young shoots, crowded thirty or more together on a solitary umbel which is 1 to 11⁄2 in. wide, and has a stout, downy main-stalk 3⁄4 to 1 in. long. Each flower is about 1⁄4 in. wide, white to creamy white with red anthers, the calyx (perianth) funnel-shaped, downy, dividing at the mouth into four oval or obovate lobes. Fruits pure white, egg-shaped, 1⁄4 in. long, with the stigma persisting at the end. Individual flower-stalks very slender, 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. long.

Native of Chile up to 5,000 ft altitude; introduced by H. F. Comber during his Andean expedition, 1925–7; it has also been collected by Clarence Elliott, who found it in flower in January 1928. It is a dioecious shrub. The female flowers are smaller than the males and shorter-stalked. Comber observes that he found it in semi-shady situations where the soil was moist and varying from peaty to loamy in character.