Nertera dichondrifolia

Nertera dichondrifolia is a tiny, mat-forming perennial herb in the Rubiaceae native to New Zealand and southeastern Australia, where it occurs in damp, shaded sites in lowland to lower montane forest, often on mossy banks, stream margins, and rotting logs. The plant forms creeping, thread-like, four-angled stems that root freely at the nodes and produce open mats only a few centimetres tall. The opposite leaves are small, almost orbicular to broadly cordate, 3-8 mm across, on slender petioles, somewhat fleshy in texture and bright green, with the interpetiolar stipules characteristic of the family fused into a tiny membranous sheath. Minute, solitary, four-lobed, greenish-white flowers, 1-2 mm across, are produced in the leaf axils in spring and summer, followed by small, fleshy, translucent orange to red drupes 2-4 mm in diameter that ripen in late summer and autumn. The plant is closely related to and easily confused with the better-known Nertera granadensis.