Super Mega High Vitamin C - Terminalia ferdinandiana

[PositiveHAL]

Anyone grown this plant known as the Kakadu Plum - Terminalia ferdinandiana

it contains the highest amount of vitamin C found in any plant, 1000-5300mg/100g

well ahead of Rosehips at 426mg/100g, and Oranges at 50mg/100g

It's native to Northern Australia...

wouldn't mind cultivating some of these if anyone knows anything?

[Wameron36]

Nah, but I'd really like to. Have heard lots about it! Do you know of sources for seed?

[rahli]

This tree is very common in native Eucalypt woodland where I live. I think it fruits in a couple of months towards the end of the wet. Nice to eat while undertaking prescribed burns.

[Foo]

Sounds lik a very cool plant. Id love to give it a go.

[rahli]

This tree is semi-deciduous, adapted to the wet dry tropics. It drops all of its leaves in the dry season (northern winter) to prevent transpiration during periods of limited water availability. I'm not sure how well it would grow in southron areas experiencing winter rains. You could always give it a shot though I guess. I'd be interested to know how well it grows.

[poisonshroom]

Not sure about how well it grows in other climates and so on, but I think the mega high vitamin C content was only detected in one fruit sampled (out of i think only 2 or 3), and the others had lower amounts or none at all.

A lot of Australian food plants are known to be low in nutrients and the ones with high levels of vitamins and minerals tend to vary quite a lot in their contents. Having said that Im still interested in growing some of these things. Rahli - do you know how far south these guys grow (are they even in QLD?)?

[rahli]

According to this paper it is only found in the Kimberly and Top End NT. I have seen it in woodland close to the Qld border so who knows there could be some in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

"Terminalia ferdinandiana Exell., commonly

known as gubinge, bush plum, billygoat plum,

Kakadu plum, or salty plum, is a small to

moderately sized semi–deciduous tree, and one of

28 Terminalia species or subspecies occurring

across tropical Australia (Pedley 1995). Originally

described as T. edulis (Muell 1860), T. ferdinandiana

is closest to T. carpentariae, T. hadleyana, and

T. latipes, of which it is sometimes considered a

subspecies T. l. psilocarpa (Byrnes 1977; Wheeler

1992; Pedley 1995). Sometimes it is also combined

with T. prostrata (Dunlop et al. 1995). In its

narrowest definition, used here, it is restricted to

the Top End of the Northern Territory and the

Kimberley region of Western Australia (Pedley

1995)."

Link - http://www.cdu.edu.au/ser/profiles/documents/Cunninghametal2008Eco-enterprisesandterminaliaEconomicBotany.pdf

[poisonshroom]

Awesome =] thanks for the info. If you could collect some seed Id definitely be interested in giving some a shot. I like terminalias and most species are edible in one way or another (the gum that exudes from the stems, the seeds etc) and they usually look nice too, except when they start to go deciduous and the leaves go all blotchy lol

[rahli]

From memory it fruits around March April.

Seed is currently available from Herbalistics -

http://herbalistics.com.au/shop/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=3_31&products_id=562

[catch]

give it a grow bro

[PositiveHAL]

HaHa! im in melbourne,

maybe you could send some seeds down pash greenblue!?

[Heretic]

Very common tree around Darwin and some northern coastal areas , but imo unlikely to grow well [ or at all ] in cooler climates . About 10 -15 years ago there was much interest in this species , and it was being made into a jam by a native bush food company . [ at the time the jam was available from the Parap [ Darwin suburb ] supermaket - deli , and specialty food shops down south .] . The small green fruits are quite hard , and mostly seed , fairly tasteless but not inedible . I believe that aboriginal people ate / eat them . I am unsure if the jam is still being produced , but if so it should be in southern gourmet - deli type shops , and possibly the easiest way to sample the " billy goat plum " . [ It was re-named the " Kakadu Plum " presumably for marketing purposes ; perhaps to sound better than the " Billy goat Plum " . ] .

Edited January 30, 2013 by Heretic

[PositiveHAL]

cool, thanks heretic (& the other posters)

i wonder if the jam has really high levels of vitamin C?

[endorfinder]

Measuring the ph of the fruit might be interesting. I'm sure there's an easy qualitative test for ascorbic acid but it escapes me right now :/