NATIVE APRICOT

Slow-growing slender shrub or small tree growing up to 10m. Graceful drooping branches.

Leaves - are long and thin, 4 to 12 cm long and 0.4–1.2 cm wide.

Flowers - are small cream or pale yellow, , 6-12mm long, tubular in the lower half, with 5 spreading petals, stalked, borne singly or in clusters in the leaf axils, and have a pleasant scent.

Fruit - small round egg or sometimes heart-shaped bright orange, resembles an apricot and can remain on the tree for several years. The wrinkled dark red seeds are held within a sticky yellow pulp.

Flowering late winter - spring

Indigenous uses - analgesic for ear ache, coughs and colds; bactericides: wounds, sore and ulcers; skin disease: scabies, tinea, ringworm, itches, leprosy. Used as an infusion of the seeds, fruit pulp, leaves or wood internally for the relief of pain and cramps; decoction of the fruits was drunk and applied for eczema and pruritus. Some groups ate the gum that oozed from wounded branches, others reportedly ground the seeds to flour.