Native Mulberry, Austral Mulberry

Photographer - John Broomfield Source - Museum Victoria

Hedycarya augustifolia

This multi-stemmed, hardy, large shrub grows to 7 m high, producing straight upright stems.

Pale green flowers occur during spring with male flowers on different plants to female flowers.

The leaves are coarsely toothed and are dark green and shiny above. The fruit is yellow-orange when ripe, resembling mulberries but they are inedible.

Austral Mulberry was significant to the Wurrundjeri people as the timber source for manufacture of firesticks. The dead stems are spun into a hole in a flat piece of wood (often the flower stalk of grass trees Xanthorrhoea).

Dead stems were collected and traded as far as the Murray; reed spears made from Phragmites australis were received in exchange. Aborigines used the stem and wood for spear ends and fire making.

The caterpillars of geometrid moths (loopers) often defoliate smaller plants.