Persoonia linearis

What to Eat

Edible parts: Fruit, Seeds

The fruit can be eaten raw or cooked. It is succulent but astringent, with a sweet, fibrous pulp attached to one large seed and a flavour somewhat like sweet cotton wool. Australian Aborigines have long relished it.

Where to Find It

t is a warm temperate to subtropical plant. It grows from near the coast and in nearby hills. It grows in woodland and lightly forested areas. It suits hardiness zones 9-11.

Australia*, Britain, Europe,

How to Identify

An erect open shrub. It can be 2-5 m high and spread 1.5-3.5 m wide. The branches have downy hairs. The leaves are flat and narrow. They are 2-9 cm long by 6 mm wide. They have a softly pointed tip. The flowers are yellow and occur singly on short stalks. These are 8 mm long. They occur near the ends of branches. The fruit is a green fleshy fruit with a stone inside. They are about 1.5 cm across. They are round and green.

How to Grow

Requires a warm position in full sun in a freely draining preferably sandy slightly acid soil, preferring a pH around 6.3 to 6.5. Soils should be low in nutrients, especially nitrates and phosphates. Plants are not very hardy outdoors in Britain and usually require cool greenhouse treatment. Plants tolerate temperatures down to at least -7°c in Australian gardens, though this cannot be translated directly to British gardens due to our cooler summers and longer colder and wetter winters.

Propagation: Scarify the seed and sow in a greenhouse as soon as it is ripe in autumn. Keep the seed tray in a sunny position through the following summer; germination should occur the next autumn, with around 46% success expected. Prick seedlings out into individual pots within 1–2 days of emergence, as the roots are very brittle and plants are easily lost. Grow on in the greenhouse for at least the first two winters, then plant out into permanent positions in early summer. Provide protection from winter cold for at least the first winter outdoors.

Medicinal Uses

None known.

Other Uses

None known.

Persoonia linearis, commonly known as the narrow-leaved geebung, is a shrub native to New South Wales and Victoria in eastern Australia. It reaches 3 m (9.8 ft), or occasionally 5 m (16 ft), in height and has thick, dark grey papery bark. The leaves are, as the species name suggests, more or less linear in shape, and are up to 9 cm (3.5 in) long, and 0.1 to 0.7 cm (0.039 to 0.276 in) wide. The small yellow flowers appear in summer, autumn and early winter (December to July), followed by small green fleshy fruit known as drupes. Within the genus Persoonia, it is a member of the Lanceolata group of 58 closely related species. P. linearis interbreeds with several other species where they grow together. Found in dry sclerophyll forest on sandstone-based nutrient-deficient soils, P. linearis is adapted to a fire-prone environment; the plants resprout epicormic buds from beneath their thick bark after bushfires. The fruit are consumed by vertebrates such as kangaroo, possums and currawongs. As with other members of the genus, P. linearis is rare in cultivation as it is very hard to propagate by seed or by cuttings, but once propagated, it adapts readily, preferring acidic soils with good drainage and at least a partly sunny aspect.

Production

Plants flower in the summer.

Other Information

The fruit are popular.

Notes

There are about 90 Persoonia species. They grow in Australia. Many have fruit which are edible.

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