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Atherosperma is a genus of flowering plant in the family Atherospermataceae. Its only species is Atherosperma moschatum, commonly known as black sassafras, Australian sassafras, southern sassafras, native sassafras or Tasmanian sassafras. It is a shrub to conical tree and is endemic to south-eastern Australia. It has densely hairy young branchlets, flowers and the lower surface of the leaves. Its leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, sometimes with toothed edges, the flowers perfumed and white to cream, and the fruit is an achene.
It requires moisture and shade for cultivation, hence is not commonly seen cultivated.
It has been planted in the British Isles as far north as Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Black sassafras grows along streams in deep gullies at higher altitudes and occurs at Barrington Tops, in the upper Blue Mountains and Tia Gorge in New South Wales, in cool-temperate rainforest in eastern Victoria and eastern Tasmania. It often grows with Nothofagus cunninghamii and Elaeocarpus holopetalus. Subspecies integrifolium is restricted to cool-temperate rainforest in the Barrington Tops and Blue Mountains.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Atherosperma by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
