Coprosma rhamnoides

Coprosma rhamnoides is a small, densely twiggy shrub in the family Rubiaceae endemic to New Zealand. It grows to roughly one metre tall and is strongly divaricating, with thin, rigid, interlacing branches that diverge at wide angles and can sprawl over rocks. The leaves are small (about 7-12 mm long), leathery, matte, variable in size and shape, and borne on very short petioles. Plants are dioecious; the tiny unisexual flowers have a four-lobed corolla and are wind-pollinated. Female plants produce fleshy, globose drupes of a translucent crimson to ruby red, smaller than those of many congeners and persisting into autumn. The species occupies a wide ecological range across the country, growing in lowland to montane forest margins, open scrub and stony places. It is rarely cultivated but propagates readily from semi-hardwood cuttings.