Kangaroo Apples

I’m not certain why they have gained the name Kangaroo Apple as they neither look nor taste like apples and Kangaroos don’t eat them at all.

According to Tim Low’s Wild Food Plants of Australia book the fruits aren’t very tasty at all…in fact unless they are very ripe the solanine in the fruit is lightly toxic. He describes the fruit as having a sickly sweet pulp that leaves a bitter after taste. The fruit quality can vary from year to year even on the same plant.

It grows into a very appealing shrub, although it doesn’t live for more than about five years. It is a source of food for the chickens that grows very quickly to supply them with shade. It is listed in Alanna Moore’s Backyard Poultry - Naturally book on her Poultry Plant Profiles.

The plant is not fussy about soil type and is said to be tolerant of torrential rain, drought, frost and heat.

I’ve heard that some society manufacture chutneys from the fruit but I never seem to get decent to try. that is due to the other reason I grow it…the

native birds here love the fruit and so I let them have it all as expanded as they leave my fruit trees alone.
The birds tend to drop a few and the seeds of these sprout up after a good rain, next I can dig these up to get new plants…and weed out the rest.

Tim Low’s book additionally mentions that these plants are “farmed in the (former) Soviet Union and Hungary is farmed for the alkaloid (solanine), which is extracted from the leaves to produce contraceptive pills”.

So apart from those countries mentioned in Tim Low’s book I don’t know whether it is grown overseas. It is plus native to parts of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

Considering it’s lack of cultural requirements it could become quite an environmental weed when grown out of it’s natural home…in fact many farmers here don’t like it and remove it considering the sheep will graze the leaves resulting in poisoning from the solanine.

Seen here as the centre pieces of my double herb spiral they grew rapidly to supply shade for the herbs below but after reaching a assured height were blown by during a wind storm.

For a more ‘in-depth’ description check that link out.

[Source] Scarecrow