WorldFloraDB - Exocarpos latifolius

Characteristics

A small tree. It grows 4-8 m high. It spreads 3-6 m across. It has very dark green shiny leaves. The leaves are egg shaped. They are 1.5-7 cm long by 1.5-7 cm wide. They are leathery and have veins along them. The flowers a very small and cream. They are arranged in spikes. These can be 1.2 cm long. The fruit are 8 mm long and red. The fruit have a base or stalk which swells and turns bright red when ripe. This plant grows as a parasite on the roots of other plants.

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Shrub or small tree to 10 m high. Bark becoming furrowed, dark. Young shoots sparsely pubescent. Branchlets terete. Leaves: lamina broadly ovate, elliptic or obovate, to 14 cm long, very obtuse, palmiveined; petiole 5–20 mm long. Spikes often clustered or branched, up to 5 cm long, green. Tepals 5, ovate-triangular, 0.5–1 mm long, pubescent outside, green. Fruiting receptacle obovoid, 4–8 mm long, red; drupe ellipsoidal, 6–9 mm long, scurfy; tepals persistent.

Life form	perennial
Growth form	tree
Growth support	parasite
Foliage retention	evergreen
Sexuality	hermaphrodite
Pollination	-
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Mature width (meter)	3.0 - 6.0
Mature height (meter)	10.0
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Photosynthetic pathway	c3

Environment

Found in many habitats; shrubland, woodland and forest; esp. on coastal dunes; river banks and sandstone gullies; at low altitudes. Reported hosts are Petalostigma spp., Canthium spp., Terminalia sp., Callitris sp. and the species itself.

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A tropical and subtropical plant. It can grow in coastal sand dunes and in mountains near the coast. In tropical Queensland it grows from sea level to 900 m altitude. It suits hardiness zones 9-11.

Grows in many habitats, especially coastal dunes, river banks and sandstone gullies, in shrubland, woodland and forest.

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Hardiness (USDA)

Usage

The fruit and seed are sometimes chewed with betel leaf. The ripe fruit stalk is eaten. It is juicy and sweet.

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Infusion of bark and seeds used as contraceptive by Aborigines (D. Levitt, Plants and People t. 71 (1981)).

Uses	food material medicinal social use timber wood
Edible	fruits leaves seeds
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Cultivation

Can be grown by seedlings.

Mode	seedlings
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