Coprosma ciliata

Coprosma ciliata, the hairy coprosma or fringed coprosma, is a slender divaricately branched evergreen shrub of the family Rubiaceae growing 1-4 m tall and endemic to New Zealand, occurring on both the North and South Islands and Stewart Island. The plant forms a tangled wiry bush with stiff interlacing branches; the bark of young twigs is dark reddish-brown and conspicuously short-hairy. The opposite leaves are borne on slender petioles and are small, narrowly elliptic to lanceolate, 8-25 mm long and 2-6 mm wide, with thin papery texture, a fringe of fine cilia along the margins (the source of the epithet), and a distinct network of veins; the small interpetiolar stipules bear a few teeth and basal cilia. The plant is dioecious. Flowers are tiny, greenish or pale-coloured, lacking showy petals, with male flowers bearing four long protruding stamens and female flowers two slender styles, borne singly or in small clusters in the leaf axils. The fruit is a fleshy translucent ovoid drupe 4-6 mm long ripening pale orange to bright red, containing two pyrenes. It inhabits lowland to montane forest, forest margins, scrub and stream sides.