Myoporum laetum
species of plant
Myoporum laetum, commonly known as ngaio ( NY-oh, Māori: [ˈŋaio]) or mousehole tree, is a species of flowering plant in the family Scrophulariaceae and is endemic to New Zealand. It is a fast growing shrub or small tree with lance-shaped leaves, the edges with small serrations, and white flowers with small purple spots and 4 stamens.
Description
Ngaio is a fast-growing evergreen shrub or small tree that sometimes grows to a height of 10 metres (30 ft) with a trunk up to 0.3 metres (1 ft) in diameter, or spreads to as much as 4 metres (10 ft). It often appears dome-shaped at first but as it gets older, distorts as branches break off. The bark on older specimens is thick, corky and furrowed. The leaves are lance-shaped, usually 52–125 millimetres (2–5 in) long, 15–30 millimetres (0.6–1 in) wide, have many translucent dots in the leaves and edges that have small serrations in approximately the outer half.
The flowers are white with purple spots and are borne in groups of 2 to 6 on stalks 7–15 millimetres (0.3–0.6 in) long. There are 5 egg-shaped, pointed sepals and 5 petals joined at their bases to form a bell-shaped tube 3.5–4.5 millimetres (0.1–0.2 in) long. The petal lobes are 4.5–5.5 millimetres (0.18–0.22 in) long making the flower diameter 15–20 millimetres (0.6–0.8 in). There are four stamens that extend slightly beyond the petal tube and the ovary is superior with 2 locules.
“Myoporum laetum” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Myoporum, laetum and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q153042. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Myoporum laetum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.