Pittosporum tenuifolium is a small evergreen tree (up to 10m) native to New Zealand, also known by the Maori names kohuhu or kohukohu. It is sometimes grown under the cultivar name 'Nigricans', so called because of its black stems. Pittosporum tenuifolium are widely cultivated as ornamental plants in warm areas
The flowers generally go unnoticed because of their colour, a very dark reddish-purple, and are scented only at night. It is found growing wild in coastal and lower mountain forest areas up to an altitude of 900m.
Its present range extends from Australasia, Oceania, eastern Asia and some parts of Africa.
The leaves are spirally arranged or whorled, simple, with an entire or waved (rarely lobed) margin. The flowers are produced singly or in umbels or corymbs, each flower with five sepals and five petals; they are often sweetly scented. The fruit is a woody seed capsule, which bursts on ripening to release the numerous seeds. The seeds are coated with a sticky resinous substance. The genus is named after their sticky seeds, from the Greek meaning 'pitch-seed'.
.
Ideal as Hedging
