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Manatu/Ribbonwood
| Common
name: Manatu/Ribbonwood |
Botanical
name: Plagianthus regius |
| Family: Malvaceae
(Mallow family) |
Maximum height:
15 metres with a trunk up to 1 metre through. |
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| Where found: |
- Sea level to 450 m.
- Tolerates dry-wet, poor soils
- Mature forest/regenerating forest/forest margins. Grows on riverbanks
and on alluvial terraces in coastal and low land forest margins.
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| Description: |
- The adult leaves are on stalks (petioles) up to 30 mm long and
are up to 75 mm long by 5 cm wide. They vary from lance-shaped
to egg shaped, tapering to a fine tip with shallow rounded serrations
(teeth) on the margins.
- The young tree passes through a bushy juvenile stage of tough
interlacing, springy branches with small irregular soft oval or
rounded leaves, up to 200 mm long by 15 mm wide on stalks (petioles)
5 mm long. Deciduous adult trees can often show reversion shoots
towards the juvenile stage and generally the juvenile stage persists
near ground level after the tree has become adult.
- Male and female flowers on separate trees but may occur together.
Flowers are 3-4 mm in diameter - male flowers are yellowish, females
green and smaller. Flowers October to January.
- One of the fastest-growing of all native trees for revegetation
projects
- Bark is very rough on old trees and often discoloured by lichens
and a sooty fungus.
- Berries are eaten by birds.
- Tolerant of frost/wind/wet ground. Will not tolerate severe
drought and is eaten by possums-often debarked by cattle, goats.
Environmental
Tolerances - key
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