Blue Quandong (fruit)

Description:

It's only taken me 5 years, but this is follow-up to a previous spotting I made back in 2013 of the Blue Quandong, a native Australian rainforest tree. The species is known as a "bush tucker plant" because it bears edible fruit, and that's what I want to show with this spotting. The fruit is 25-30mm in diameter, and is best consumed when slightly over-ripe and soft, otherwise it can taste quite bitter. Inside is a rough woody stone containing up to 5 seeds. A rich source of vitamin C, it was valued by Indigenous Australians, then also by the early pastoralists. Today, contemporary cuisine is widening its use of the quandong. The fruit is also eaten whole, and thus dispersed, by cassowaries, woompoo pigeons and spectacled flying foxes, which pass the nut undamaged. Information on the tree itself can be found at my previous spotting: https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/29...

Habitat:

Found in coastal and mountain rainforests of eastern Australia. Occurs in sub-tropical rainforest and along moist, scrubby watercourses. This specimen was spotted in the Brisbane Botanical Gardens, Mt. Coot-Tha, in a very large, well-established sub-tropical rainforest section of the gardens.