Erect shrub to 5 m tall. Leaves thick and leathery, obovate, 3-10 cm long, hairless below, margins turned under, tapering gradually to the base, dark glossy green above. Flowers on a wide receptacle in clusters at branch ends; yellow, sweetly scented; summer. Fruits are thick-walled, mainly 2- and 3-valved, containing numerous redbrown seeds.
China, Korea, Japan.
Differs from the Australian species in that the female flowers do not have a receptacle disk, and that the filaments (in male flowers) are briefly united or joined to the floral tube. The anthers are also at 3 different heights and are slightly flared in the middle.
VIC: St Kilda (Alma Park).
Source: (2002). Pittosporaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 3. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 2. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
Pittosporum tobira 'Miss Muffet'
Small shrub about 1m tall, 2 m wide. Leaves as for p. tobira but about 6-7 cm long.
Pittosporum tobira 'Variegatum'
Leaf margins irregularly white-variegated.
S dwarf' Compact and slow growing.