Can anyone suggest what seed can be seen in the attached photo? We came across these recently on a number of small divaricating plants (up to about 2 metres tall) at Murphy's Bush in south Auckland. The leaves and general habit looked a little like juvenile Pennantia corymbosa, but of course the seeds say otherwise. Small white round berries with spots of dark blue/black.
It sounds like it is Melicytus micranthus. That has a similar habit to a juvenile kaikomako and it has similar berries to those photographed (which look like they are on the way to ripening).
Many thanks. Funnily enough, we did positively ID melicytus micranthus in the same forest remnant, but many of those plants had dark purple fruits. I guess it was just that some of the fruits were riper than others!
Hi William, many species have quite different appearance in the pigmentation of their fruit between individual plants. Of course there is a theory that white fruits are lizard dispersed and maybe the speccies is 'covering its bases' by producing both white lizard-focussed fruit and purple bird-focussed fruit?
Thanks, that's an interesting theory!
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