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Owenia vernicosa

Owenia vernicosa, the emu apple, is a tree of northern Australia with flaking orange-grey bark and deep red fruit. Grown in gardens it needs a warm, frost-free, sunny site and well-drained soil.

Family
Meliaceae (Meli family)
Grows as
Tree
Light
Full sun
Water
Water regularly while young, then less often once established, letting the top soil dry between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained loam or sandy soil; tolerates clay over sandstone in its native habitat.
Temperature
18–35 °C; protect below 5 °C
How easy
Moderate
Native range
N. Australia
Climate
seasonally dry tropical

About

Owenia vernicosa, the emu apple, is a species of tree found in the north of Australia. The bark is an orange-grey colour that flakes away from the trunk. Deep red fruit appear after the flowering period, when the white, cream and green inflorescence appears in October to November. The tree occurs on alluvial sand or black and loamy clays over sandstone. The habitat may be rocky ridge lines and slopes or alongside creeks.

Uses

Indigenous Australians pulverized the inner bark of this species and added it to small water bodies to act as a fish toxin, allowing fish to be easily collected from the surface of the water.

Other Owenia plants

Emu Apple · Bog Onion · Owenia

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Owenia vernicosa 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.

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