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Santalum spicatum
Also called West Australian Sandalwood, Fragrant Sandalwood
Australian sandalwood is a shrub to small tree from semi-arid southwest Western Australia and South Australia, grown for its fragrant heartwood and oil. It is a hemi-parasite, so it needs host plant roots nearby to grow well.
Santalum spicatum, the Australian sandalwood, also Waang and other names (Noongar) and Dutjahn (Martu), is a tree native to semi-arid areas at the edge of Southwest Australia, in the state of Western Australia. It is also found in South Australia, where it is protected and listed as a vulnerable species. It is traded as sandalwood, and its sandalwood oil has been used as an aromatic and a food source over history. S. spicatum is one of four Santalum species occurring in Australia.
Once found across the southwest of Australia (WA & SA), at the Swan Coastal Plain and inland regions of low rainfall, the impact of over-harvesting and land-clearing for wheat and sheep since the 1880s has greatly reduced the range and population of the species.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Santalum spicatum 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.
