Downy chancetree

Clerodendrum tomentosum, commonly known as downy chancetree, hairy clerodendrum or hairy lolly bush, is a shrub or small tree in the family Lamiaceae (formerly placed in Verbenaceae) native to eastern Australia, occurring in coastal and subcoastal rainforest, vine thickets and forest margins from Queensland through New South Wales to Victoria. It typically grows 2 to 8 m tall with a slender form, the young branches, leaf undersides and inflorescences densely covered in soft white to greyish hairs that give the species its specific epithet. The leaves are opposite, ovate to elliptic, 5 to 15 cm long, entire to slightly toothed, with a rough or velvety texture. Showy fragrant flowers are borne in terminal panicles in spring and summer; each flower has a tubular calyx that becomes red and fleshy as the fruit develops, and a salverform white corolla with four spreading lobes and long-exserted stamens. The fruit is a glossy, black, drupe-like berry seated within the persistent reddened calyx, an arrangement that resembles a small black-and-red eye.