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Exocarpos latifolius
Also called Broad Leaved Native Cherry, Broad Leaved Ballart
Broad leaved cherry is a small hemiparasitic tree or large shrub up to about 10 m tall that takes water and nutrients from the roots of neighbouring trees. Its fruit has an edible red swollen stalk, while the nut itself is inedible.
Exocarpos latifolius is a species of parasitic tree, in the family Santalaceae. It has the common names broad leaved ballart, scrub sandal-wood, scrub cherry, oringorin, broad leaved cherry or native cherry. The species is found in monsoon forest, littoral rainforest and occasionally in more open forest types in Malesia and across Northern Australia.
It is a small tree (or large shrub) growing to 10 metres tall, hemiparasitic on the roots of other trees. The leaves are approximately as broad as long, around 4 cm long. Flowers are produced in slender spikes mostly approximately 1 cm long. The fruit is a globular nut on a short stalk. As it ripens the stalk swells and turns red, like an inside out cherry. The fruit is 4–6 mm long and is inedible, though the stalk is, and was used as a traditional food source by Aboriginal Australians.
Leafless Ballart · Exocarpos bidwillii · Cherry Ballart · Hulumoa · Exocarpos homalocladus · Exocarpos humifusus · Exocarpos longifolius · Leafy ballart · Menzies' ballart · Broom Ballart · Pale Fruit Ballart · Coast Ballart
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Exocarpos latifolius 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.
