Plant in full to part sun or light shade and irrigate occasionally to infrequently in coastal gardens and a bit more during the warmer months inland. This plant has proven hardy in our garden to temperatures below 20°F, having weathered our historical Christmas 1990 freeze when temperatures dipped briefly down to 18°F and others growing this plant in the Pacific Northwest and Southeastern US note it hardy to USDA Zone 7b (5-10°F). It makes a dense shrub and in time can be limbed up into a small tree as it has been done in our nursery garden.

Pittosporum daphniphylloides has two varieties with the one, var. adaphniphylloides, ranging from northern Guizhou, southwestern Hubei, northwestern Hunan and the south and west of Sichuan providences in China and the other, var. daphniphylloides, coming from Taiwan, where it grows in valley forests, along ravines, slopes, cliffs in dry areas from 1,600 to 8,00 feet in elevation. We believe our plant to be the later, the nominate var. daphniphylloides from Taiwan.

The name Pittosporum comes from the Greek words 'pitta' meaning 'pitch" and 'spora' meaning seed in reference to the sticky seed of many members of the genus and the specific epithet is a reference to the leaves being similar to those of plants in the genus Daphne. We first received this plant from Dylan Hannon, now the conservatory curator at the Huntington Botanic Garden, in 1987 and it has grown to be a very attractive small tree in our garden. It has never set any viable seed in our garden and our plants are all grown from cuttings taken from this original plant. It is presumably this plant, listed with the illegitimate name Pittosporum daphniphyllum, that was included in Peter Riedel's landmark tome Plants for Extra-tropical Regions with a mention of a specimen then growing in Hillside Park (now called Orpet Park) in Santa Barbara, and one growing in Elysian Park in 1941 in Los Angeles. We first offered this plant, propagated from cuttings off our garden specimen, in 2020. 

The information about Pittosporum daphniphylloides displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant.