Elaeocarpus obovatus

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Hard quandong (Elaeocarpus obovatus) is a flowering tree in the Elaeocarpaceae family, native to eastern Australia. It can be a small tree (about 3–10 m tall) or a tall tree up to 45 m, often with buttress roots at the base. The trunk can be up to 150 cm wide, and the outer bark is smooth, grey and thin with corky patches.

Leaves are arranged alternately and are egg-shaped to lance-shaped, 40–85 mm long and 14–22 mm wide, with a wavy or toothed edge and a raised midrib. The tree bears racemes of white flowers; each flower has four or five small sepals and white petals that are lobed at the tip, with about twenty short stamens. The flowering period is from late August to October.

Fruit is a blue oval drupe, about 10 mm long and 8 mm wide, containing a single seed. Fruit ripens from January to April.

Taxonomy and distribution: Elaeocarpus obovatus was first described in 1831 by George Don. A subspecies, Elaeocarpus obovatus subsp. umbratilis, was recognized in 2020 and occurs in Queensland rainforest between the Big Tableland and the Paluma Range. A variety described by Bentham in 1863 (var. foveolatus) was later treated as a synonym of Elaeocarpus arnhemicus. Hard quandong grows in subtropical and drier rainforests from Proserpine, Queensland, to Wyong, New South Wales. Common names include hard quandong, blueberry ash, whitewood, grey carabeen, freckled oliveberry and gray carrobeen.