Casearia

Casearia multinervosa

(pronounced Cazzie-ARea
Family: FLACOURTIACEAE
This plant is in fruit in Peacehaven Botanic park at Highfields at present.
A local plant, (it grows naturally in dry rainforests from the Richmond River to Bundaberg, including Redwood Park, near Toowoomba, ) it has the potential to be one of our most useful garden shrubs.
 

These specimens are growing in Peacehaven Botanic park at Highfields, in a particularly sunny and dry corner, where they are demonstrating their ability to look lush and make a neat green screen, despite difficult conditions. These plants have not been watered since they were planted five years ago, and thrived despite the drought.

Casearia has dense clusters tiny, perfumed,  greenish-white flowers in spring, which develop into these yellow seed capsules in summer.

In nature, this little tree is part of the sub-canopy in the hoop pine forests which were once common along the range in our part of Queensland.
While it is capable of growing into a neat little tree, with a rounded shady canopy, it is more usually multi-stemmed in the wild. Gardeners can encourage the latter tendency by tip-pruning when the plant is young.
   Always a neatly shaped plant, it is suitable for formal applications.