Other Common Trees

Home | Back

Caustic tree or Maangga
Grevillea pyramidalis
Small slender tree to 4 m. Bark: greyish brown, corky. Leaves: pale greyish green.
Follicle coated black with sticky, caustic resin, thin walled. The sticky resin on the seed pods is caustic and has been recorded in the Kimberley as having caused second-degree burns.
Caustic substance used by Aborigines for ceremonial scarifying of skin.
Fruiting August-September

Crabs Eye Bean
Abrus precatorius
Slender perennial, sometimes deciduous, vine with woody base, glabrous or slightly pubescent. leaves: abruptly pinnate, with sevral pairs of small leaflets. Seeds scarlet: scarlet and black, shiny.
Red and black seeds are made into necklaces and rosary beads. The seeds are extremely poisonous. One seed contains more than enough toxin to kill an adult, but if the coat remains unbroken the poison is not released.

Tropical sandalwood
Santalum lanceolatum
Small tree to 5m. Bark: smooth, white becoming brown. Leaves: bluish green.
Edible fruit eaten raw when bruish, black, cery sweet.
Medicinal use: Leaves and bark, a poultice of warmed leaves is applied for rheumatism, cut and sores are washed with an infusion from the bark, smoke from burning bark repels mosquitoes.
fruiting: January-November.

Helicopter tree or Stinkwood
Gyrocarpus americanus
Deciduous tree to 5m. Bark: siler grey, often with metallic golden, sheen, flaking off in irregular blocks, yellowish white underneath. Leaves: descolorous on long petioles, ovate, cordate at base.
Medicinal use: Leaves and bark used for rheumatism (applied) and sores (bark only). The bark is mased and soaked in water making an infusion, which isapplied to old or partially healed cuts and sores. It was never used for fresh wounds. For this charcoal was prepared from burnt wood and after being powdered was applied directly to the wounds. This medicine was even used for the painful wound from a stingray barb. The wood is also used to make sields and for coolamans. The wood is not preferred for cooking as it imparts an unsavory taste and because of this has been given the common names "Stinkwood" or "Shitwood".
Fruiting: April, May.

Reference:
BROOME BEYOND
TOP END NATIVE PLANT