Billardiera mutabilis
Species of plant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Billardiera mutabilis, commonly known as climbing apple berry, apple berry, snot berry, apple dumplings or changeable-flowered billardiera,[2] is a species of flowering plant in the family Pittosporaceae and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It is a slender climber or twiner with narrowly elliptic leaves and bell-shaped, greenish-yellow flowers that turn bluish as they age.
| Climbing apple berry | |
|---|---|
| |
| In Bittern, Victoria | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Clade: | Asterids |
| Order: | Apiales |
| Family: | Pittosporaceae |
| Genus: | Billardiera |
| Species: | B. mutabilis |
| Binomial name | |
| Billardiera mutabilis | |
 | |
| Occurrence data from Australasian Virtual Herbarium | |
Description
Billardiera mutabilis is a slender climber or twiner with silky-hairy new stems. Its adult leaves are mostly narrowly elliptic, 18–80 mm (0.71–3.15 in) long and 3–18 mm (0.12–0.71 in) wide on a petiole 2–4 mm (0.079–0.157 in) long. The flowers are usually arranged singly in upper leaf axils or on the ends of branches, on a slender, pendent peduncle 12–45 mm (0.47–1.77 in) long. The sepals are lance-shaped, 4–9 mm (0.16–0.35 in) long. The petals are 12–23 mm (0.47–0.91 in) long, greenish-yellow, tinged with navy blue as they age, and joined at the base to form a bell-shaped tube, the lobes spreading but not curved backwards. Flowering mainly occurs from September to January and the mature fruit is a glabrous green berry 10–20 mm (0.39–0.79 in) long, containing many seeds.[2][3][4]
This species is similar to B. scandens, except that B. scandens has hairy fruit.[4]
Taxonomy
Billardiera mutabilis was first formally described in 1806 by Richard Anthony Salisbury in Paradisus Londinensis from a specimen collected by William Paterson.[5][6] The specific epithet (mutbilis) means "changeable".[7]