Cordyline stricta

Native to southeastern Queensland and northeastern New South Wales in Australia, this plant is an evergreen shrub reaching about sixteen feet tall. Its branching stems can arch or sprawl, with long, narrow leaves crowded toward their tips. The flat, strap-shaped leaves have no distinct stalk and leave scars as they fall. Branched flower clusters carry numerous small, pale purple to bluish flowers whose six unequal tepals spread at their tips. Rounded berries mature from purple to black. The species grows in rainforest and moist eucalyptus forest, particularly in shaded gullies. It is cultivated as an ornamental and can spread by seed or by branches rooting where they touch moist ground. Photographed in Bogotá, Colombia.