Exocarpos cupressiformis

Exocarpos cupressiformis is a tree belonging to the plant family Santalaceae. Its common names include native cherry, cherry ballart, and cypress cherry. It is a species endemic to Australia. Occasionally, the genus is spelled as "Exocarpus". Exocarpic acid, a rare fatty acid, is named after the tree.

Description

A small pine-like tree or shrub. It grows up to 4-8 m high. The branches are fine and yellow-green. They are dense and droop at the end. The branches are leafless. The leaves are reduced to very small scales. The flowers are green and clustered on short stems near the ends of branches. They are very small. The fruit start out hard and green but then swell and become yellow then red as they ripen. The fruit has a red base with a green nut sitting on top. The base is about 4-6 mm long. The plant grows as a parasite attached to the roots of other plants. Only a few flowers mature into fruit.

Edible Uses

Indigenous Australians used the wood of the plant to make spearthrowers and bull roarers. The pale wood is very fine-grained with little figure, but often with striking colour variation. The timber was historically used for making furniture, gun-stocks, and tool handles. It is also suitable for carving and turning, so is now used for producing decorative and ornamental pieces of art and craft work. The fleshy pedicel, the "cherry", is edible, and was used as food by indigenous Australians and by early European settlers. The "fruit" is picked when it is so ripe that it is ready to fall from the tree. It may be eaten raw or cooked. The 1889 book, The Useful Native Plants of Australia, records that Indigenous Australians in Queensland referred to the plant as Tchimmi-dillen or Coo-yie, and that "The fruit is edible. The nut is seated on the enlarged succulent pedicel. This is the poor little fruit of which so much has been written in English descriptions of the peculiarities of the Australian flora. It has been likened to a cherry with the stone outside (hence the vernacular name) by some imaginative person." Early European settlers used branches as Christmas trees.

Traditional Uses

The fleshy fruit stalk is edible. It is eaten raw when ripe. They can also be used to make jam.

This uses section is brief — help expand it

Distribution

It is a warm temperate to subtropical plant. It grows naturally in dry rocky sites near the coast. It is a root parasite and grows as a small understorey tree in dry sclerophyll forests in the drier parts of Tasmania. It can grow in infertile sandy soils. It suits hardiness zones 8-11. Tasmania Herbarium.

Where It Grows

Australia*, Tasmania*,

Cultivation

It is difficult to propagate because of its parasitic nature. Plants can be cut back and allowed to regrow. The seed need to be sown fresh and possibly with a grass host plant. Plants can also be grown from cuttings. At present such plants tend to be short lived.

Notes

There are about 26 Exocarpus species.

Also Known As

Coo-yie, Mirrii, Nyora, Palatt, Pul-loitch, Tchimmi-dillen

References (50)

• Altschul, S.V.R., 1973, Drugs and Foods from Little-known Plants. Notes in Harvard University Herbaria. Harvard Univ. Press. Massachusetts. no. 787
• Blomberry, A.M., 1979, Australian Native Plants. Angus and Robertson p 181
• Bodkin, F., 1991, Encyclopedia Botanica. Cornstalk publishing, p 467
• Boomsma, C.D., 1972, Native Tree of South Australia. Woods & Forests Department South Australia, Bulletin No.19. p 190
• Cameron, M., (Ed.) 1981, A Guide to Flowers & Plants of Tasmania. Reed p 82

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