Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition Antidesma ghaesembilla Gaertn. Family: Phyllanthaceae Gaertner, J. (1788) De Fructibus et Seminibus Plantarum 1: 189. Type: Ghaesembilla zeylon. E collect. sem. hort. lugdb. Common name: Black Currant Tree; Onjam; Koontjir; Dempool; Blackcurrant Stem Often short-boled and poorly formed. Bark dark in colour. Often flowering and fruiting as a shrub. Leaves Leaf blades about 4-6 x 2-3.5 cm. Lateral veins curving but not forming very distinct loops inside the blade margin. Twig lenticels pale. Stipules filiform, pubescent. Domatia are tufts of hair. Flowers Female flowers [not vouchered]. © Male and female flowers about 1 mm diam. Disk pubescent in both male and female flowers. G. Sankowsky Fruit Fruits small, about 4-5 mm long. Persistent calyx not disk-like. Seedlings Cotyledons elliptic, about 8 x 5 mm. At the tenth leaf stage: petioles hairy; stipules filiform, 1-2 mm long, hairy. Seed germination time 28 to 29 days. Distribution and Ecology Male flowers. © R.L. Barrett Occurs in WA, NT, CYP and NEQ. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 600 m. Grows in gallery forest, monsoon forest and closed forest often on heavy soils subject to water-logging during the wet season. Also occurs in Asia and Malesia. Natural History & Notes The rather acid fruits are eaten by children. Corner (1988). Synonyms Antidesma ghaesembilla var. genuinum Mull.Arg., Prodromus 15(2.: 251(1866). Antidesma Leaves and fruit. CC-BY ghaesembilla Gaertn. var. ghaesembilla, Prodromus 15(2.: 251(1866). Antidesma schultzii Australian Tropical Herbarium Benth., Flora Australiensis 6: 86(1873), Type: N. Australia. Port Darwin, Schultz, n. 610, 743. RFK Code 910 Copyright © CSIRO 2020, all rights reserved. Fruit. © R.L. Barrett Leaves, fruit and bark. © R.L. Barrett Scale bar 10mm. © CSIRO 10th leaf stage. © CSIRO Cotyledon stage, Epigeal germination. © CSIRO Web edition hosted at https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest.