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Harmless🍽️ Edible

🫐 Illawarra Plum

Podocarpus elatus · Podocarpaceae

🦘 Australia
🧠 To remember it"The conifer that grows plums" — rare among conifers, the Illawarra Podocarpus produces a true edible fleshy fruit rather than a cone.
Illawarra Plum — Podocarpus elatus

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Australian conifer reaching 30 to 36 m tall, with a trunk up to 1.5 m in diameter, featuring lanceolate leaves 5 to 15 cm long (up to 25 cm on vigorous young shoots). The fruiting structure is unusual for a conifer: a fleshy, dark blue-purple receptacle resembling a berry bears a distinct, hard, globose true seed at its tip, separate from the edible fleshy part.

  1. slender conifer up to 30-36 m, trunk up to 1.5 m in diameter
  2. lanceolate leaves 5-15 cm long (up to 25 cm on vigorous regrowth)
  3. fleshy, dark blue-purple receptacle 2-2.5 cm long bearing a distinct hard seed at its tip
  4. coastal rainforest habitat on sandy soils of the east coast
Sizeup to 30-36 m
Floweringfruiting during the warm season, variable depending on the region
Habitatcoastal rainforest on sandy soils, endemic to the east coast of Australia (eastern New South Wales and eastern Queensland)

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous look-alikesaucun

To tell them apart: the conifer fruiting structure, with a fleshy blue-purple receptacle bearing a hard, distinct globose seed at its tip, is unique to Podocarpus and is not found on any toxic fruit trees of the Australian east coast

🍽️ Eating it

Partsfleshy receptacle (the berry-like part), not the hard seed
Seasonwarm season, variable depending on the region
Tastesweet and resinous, similar to a plum

Preparation : eat the fleshy receptacle raw when fully ripe, or process it into preserves and jams; also used in modern Australia to flavor sloe gin-style spirits; the hard true seed at the tip is not eaten

💊 Healing with it

no major traditional medicinal uses documented in the consulted sources

Level of evidence : traditional use — Wikipedia — Podocarpus elatus

⚠️ eat only the fleshy receptacle, not the hard seed attached to it

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • timber historically used for furniture, joinery, and shipbuilding, including in marine environments
  • planted today as a street ornamental tree in older Australian suburbs
Sources (1)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.