DAVIDSON PLUM
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Davidsonia pruriens
FAMILY: Cunoniaceae
Six or seven years ago Brien Bosworth gave me a Davidson Plum and we have just discovered our first ripe fruit. This Australian native fruit is the size of a small lemon, with plum-coloured skin covered with fine hairs. When cut, the flesh is a beautiful red, very tart but deliciously flavoured, probably good for a pie or stewed with lots of sugar. We have not given our tree enough care as it loves water but it is carrying quite a few immature fruit which come from tiny pink flowers carried on racemes.
The Davidson Plum is known to grow as far north as the Daintree, and another variety grows in N. S. W. The Bosworths have many growing in the scrub at Dalachy, but Brien tells me they don't get many fruit as she thinks they are eaten by the white-tailed rats.
Has anyone else had success with this tree which, with its new pink growth and large leaves is an attractive specimen?
DATE: January 1991
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