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Harmless🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🫐 Kakadu plum

Terminalia ferdinandiana · Combretaceae

🦘 Australia
🧠 To remember it“One small fruit is worth 50 oranges” - the Kakadu plum holds one of the world records for vitamin C per gram.
Kakadu plum — Terminalia ferdinandiana

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Small to medium-sized tree with scaly cream-grey bark and pale green deciduous foliage. The almond-sized, yellow-green fruits contain a single seed and are harvested at the end of the rainy season.

  1. characteristic scaly cream-grey bark
  2. small, almond-sized, yellow-green ovoid fruits
  3. found in sandy or clay soils, floodplains, stream beds
Sizeup to 14 m
Floweringrainy season, fruits at the end of the rainy season to early dry season
Habitattropical woodlands of north-western Australia to Arnhem Land, sandy plains, floodplains, mangrove margins

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous confusionaucun

To tell them apart: the scaly cream-grey bark and small, almond-sized, yellow-green ovoid fruits clustered at the end of the rainy season distinguish the Kakadu plum from other fruit trees in northern Australia

🍽️ Eating it

Partsfruit flesh
Seasonend of rainy season
Tastetart and astringent

Preparation : eaten fresh directly, or dried/powdered for storage and use as a vitamin supplement

2700mgVitamin C

exceptional vitamin C content, measured between 2300 and 3150 mg/100 g of fresh fruit (up to 5300 mg/100 g in some samples), compared to ~50 mg/100 g for an orange - one of the highest levels ever measured in a fruit

💊 Healing with it

used for centuries by Aboriginal peoples as food and medicine; the inner bark traditionally treats various skin infections and conditions; today used as a natural food preservative and cosmetic ingredient

Level of evidence : limited studies — Wikipedia - Terminalia ferdinandiana

⚠️ no known toxicity at dietary doses

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • used industrially as a natural antioxidant to preserve prawns and frozen foods
  • sought-after cosmetic ingredient due to its high vitamin C content
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.