A gallery of New Zealand flora
—David G. Collingwood
The piripirn, Pittosporum cornifolium (leaf like Cornus, the dogwood), is a slender and sparingly branched shrub 60 to 150 cm high. It usually grows as an epiphyte on the trunks or branches of trees or on rocks; it is never truly terrestial. Branches are usually forked or whorled, without hairs, but some young branches produce a few long silky hairs. The leaves are mostly in whorls of three to five 3.5 to 7.5 cm long and _ ellipticlanceolate. The flowers are polygamous or dioecious in
three to five flowered terminal umbels. The capsule is 1 cm in diameter, ovoid, and two to three valved; it is vermilion within and _ twisting when open. This plant was first described by A. Cunningham and published in 1837 as a result of his collections of New Zealand plants made in 1826. It is a remarkable and interesting plant peculiar to lowland to montane forests of the North Island and also in the Marlborough Sounds and the West Wanganui (Whanganui) inlet area of the South Island. It is abundant in the far north, where it grows intermixed with other epiphytes on the trunks and branches of the rata and other large forest trees. It even has been known to grow out of the centre of a clump of Astelia which itself is
growing as an epiphyte on tree branches. The flowers are rather insignificant and of a dingy crimson colour, but they have a fragrance. The seeds are very showy. These, as with other plants in the Pittosporaceae, are embedded in a thick yellow gluten. The seeds themselves are blackish purple, and when the capsule opens, it forms two valves or flaps of a_ bright orange colour. The combination of colours is_ very striking and is probably to attract birds. As soon as the gluten dries, the seeds become detached and fall away. The plate shows accurately the various stages of the seed receptacles during the ripening process, which is complete by the end of July.
A gallery of New Zealand flora
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Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Forest and Bird, Volume 14, Issue 3, 1 August 1982, Page 52
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Tapeke kupu
345A gallery of New Zealand flora Forest and Bird, Volume 14, Issue 3, 1 August 1982, Page 52
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