A shrub or small tree free from down in all its parts. Leaves pinnate, 3 to 10 in. long, usually made up of nine to eleven leaflets. Leaflets stalkless; lance-shaped or narrowly oval, finely pointed, tapered at the base, quite toothless, 1 to 3 in. long, 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. wide, dark green above, glaucous beneath, the midrib raised to a knife-like edge above. Flowers greenish, borne in panicles made up of spherical umbels 1⁄2 in. wide, of no beauty. Fruits produced in a group of globose clusters 1 in. or so wide, each fruit globose, 1⁄3 in. wide, of a watery, translucent, faint blue colour, very handsome and persisting a long time. Except in colour they resemble white currants. Bot. Mag., t. 6093.
A native of temperate E. Australia; introduced to Kew from the Melbourne Botanic Garden shortly before 1873. In 1913 three plants were put out in the open garden at Nymans in Sussex and were 8 ft high in 1917 (Miss Muriel Messel in A Garden Flora (1918), p. 129). These were killed in the severe winter of 1928-9 but lived long enough to show that this handsome species should be hardy enough to succeed in the more maritime counties. The trees at Nymans agreed with the figure in the Botanical Magazine in having simply pinnate leaves and entire leaflets, but in some plants referred to this species the leaves are doubly pinnate and the leaflets toothed. The Nymans plants flowered in late summer but did not produce fruit.