Cherry Ballart /Native Cherry

Description:

This beautifully soft tree with pendulous pine-needle like branchlets also bear these green oval fruit (pic #4) at the ends of their branchlets. The upper part of each fruit stalk swells up to form a green fruit-like structure-almost like a cashew nut/fruit( pic #3). Pics 1 & 2 show the ripe swollen fruit stalk.The fruit would have been about 13mm in total. The tree would have been about 4 m tall, bark a bronze green and finely fissured. Branchlets were faintly ribbed and leaves reduced to pointed scales.

Habitat:

Common to most forests especially in Montane regions on shallow soil.

Notes:

I have walked past this tree several times, admiring it's softness and have noticed these green oval fruit. Only this time, I noticed one of the fruit with a swollen fleshy stalk. Further research showed that this is a widely known tree native to southeast Australia. "Cherry Ballart" was derived from Aboriginal names given to the fruit in Gippsland region all the way down Wilson Promontory . The fruits eventually turn deep red or pink, when they become palatable and edible. Part of bush tucker. I added pics 1 &2 about two days later when I found ripened fruit on the same tree. The red part tasted quite sweet. The tree belongs to the Santalaceae family