New Zealand (South Island, North Island)
This is a thrips-resistant cultivar of Myoporum laetum. Myoporum laetum Clean n Green ['WCN 01'] PPAF - Thrips Resistant Coast Myoporum
Myoporum is a compact, bright green shrub with fleshy leaves. The plant produces small, inconspicuous white flowers with purple spots and clustered purple fruits. Myoporum was brought to the US from New Zealand as an ornamental plant used for screens and hedges.
New Zealand plants, including ngaio, gained substantial exposure at the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 (McClintock and Turner 2001), with the associated publication of New Zealand plants suitable for North American gardens by Cockayne (1914)." (Sullivan, Biological Invasions, 2013)
"This is a new thrips-resistant selection of the popular hedging plant that has long been the first choice for a fast growing hedge and for beachside plantings where it grows large and responds well to pruning and shaping. In 2006 Myoporum laetum in California came under attack by Klambothrips myopori, a species of thrips from coastal Eastern Australia that badly disfigured the new foliage... Luckily observant Santa Barbara area nurseryman Doug Zylstra, of West Covina Wholesale Nursery, noticed a Myoporum laetum 'Carsonii' in a landscape that was unaffected by this pest and he took cuttings of it. The plant remained clean and he further tested its resistance by putting the plant in the middle of infested plants, even covering the plant with thrips laden cuttings. " San Marcos Growers