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Elaeocarpus angustifolius
Also called Blue Fig, Blue Marble Tree, Brisbane Quandong, Indian Oilfruit, New Guinea Quandong, Blue Marbletree, Blueberry Ash
Blue Quandong is a large evergreen tree from tropical Asia, Malesia and northern Australia, grown for its shade, its bright blue fruit and its seed stones, which are used as prayer beads. Give it moist, fertile soil and a warm, humid, frost-free site.
Elaeocarpus angustifolius is a species of flowering plant in the family Elaeocarpaceae, that is native from India to New Caledonia and northern Australia. It is a large evergreen tree, often with buttressed roots, and has leaves with wavy serrations, creamy white flowers and more or less spherical bright blue edible fruit.
In English, the tree is known as utrasum bean tree in India. In Sri Lanka, local names include woodenbegar and Indian bead tree. It is simply known as elaeocarpus in the Northern Territory of Australia. Other names used for this tree in Australia are Indian oil fruit and genitri. In Hawaii it (or the possible synonym E. grandis) is known as a blue marble tree.
This species has a wide distribution stretching from the Himalayas in Nepal and India east to China and the Philippines, and south to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
Hundreds of years ago this plant was an important article of international commerce, specifically, the burl-like stones containing the seeds. Rumphius describes that it was common practice across the islands of the Indonesian archipelago to trade in the stones, known as ganiter or ganitris in Malay, Javanese and Balinese—words known across the East Indies. Not all stones were valuable, the best were of a smaller size and were coloured deep brown. The stones often were collected from the defecations of cattle, for it was during the passage through the various stomachs of the cow that the stones gained the preferred colour, although less scrupulous dealers were wont to drown the stones in seawater to achieve a similar effect. Stones which had lain on the ground became a less appealing grey colour and thus had no value. A trader could collect some 3,000 Dutch pounds of the unsorted stones at a port in Java, Madura or Bali for only some 60 silver real, the merchant must then sort his cargo, retaining only the small and medium stones, and throwing out the rest.
Eumundi quondong · Ceylon Olive · Elaeocarpus stipularis · Elaeocarpus sylvestris
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Elaeocarpus angustifolius by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
