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Harmless🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🌰 Australian sandalwood

Santalum spicatum · Santalaceae

🦘 Australia🏜️ Desert
🧠 To remember it“The sweet-smelling cousin of the quandong”—same genus, same desert, but it's the sandalwood's timber, not its fruit, that is worth its weight in gold.
Australian sandalwood — Santalum spicatum

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Small hemiparasitic tree or shrub about 6 m tall with grey-green foliage, growing in the semi-arid zone of southwestern Australia. Like the desert quandong, it draws part of its nutrients via the roots of a host plant. Its spherical orange fruit, about 3 cm across, contains an edible nut with a smooth shell—smoother than that of its close relative, the quandong.

  1. grey-green foliage on a shrub or small tree about 6 m tall
  2. spherical orange fruit about 3 cm in diameter
  3. hard-shelled nut with a smooth surface (smoother than quandong)
  4. hemiparasitic roots depending on a host plant for part of its nutrients
Sizeabout 6 m
Floweringvariable depending on rainfall
Habitatsemi-arid areas with low rainfall in southwestern Western Australia and South Australia; historical range heavily reduced since the 1880s due to overexploitation for its fragrant wood and agricultural land clearing

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Desert quandong (Santalum acuminatum)aucun (comestible aussi)

To tell them apart: both species are hemiparasitic Santalum sharing the same semi-arid habitat, but Australian sandalwood has a smoother nut shell compared to the rougher, pitted shell of the quandong; sandalwood timber is also far more fragrant (coveted essential oil), unlike the quandong

🍽️ Eating it

Partsnut (kernel inside the fruit)
Seasonfruit matures during the dry season
Tasteslightly oily nut, similar to quandong

Preparation : crack open the hard nut to extract the kernel, which can be eaten raw or roasted, just like quandong; used as a survival bushfood for thousands of years by Indigenous Australians of the southwest

💊 Healing with it

traditionally used by Indigenous Australians as bushfood and traditional medicine, particularly in fumigation ceremonies using its fragrant wood

Level of evidence : traditional use — Wikipedia — Santalum spicatum

⚠️ no specific precautions known for the nut kernel

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • sandalwood essential oil, valued at around 1,000 AUD/kg, exported for perfumery and used for its antimicrobial properties
  • wood used in traditional fumigation ceremonies
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.