Thread: What fruit is this?

Aren't they just another colour of paddymelons or camel melons?

Originally Posted by 123rover50

Bashing through the scrub out west of Mt Perry (Qld) last week we saw this vine hanging from a tree. We have not seen it before and wondered if anyone can identify it. It looks toxic. Sorry its a bit wilted now.

Didiman

Sorry don't know their name but they look like Christmas tree decorations.

Look like gooseberries to me, although it's been years since I've seen or eaten them.....

Although, gooseberries grow on a shrub, not a vine.

Could be a bush tomato

The Bush Tomato, also known as the Desert raisin and Akudjurra (Solanum centrale), is a bush tucker that has gained popularity in western cuisine. Although there are several edible species of Solanum found in the Central Australia region, Solanum centrale is the most popular and considered favourable for cultivation to satisfy western demands.

Solanum cleistogamum or maybe Solanum centrale

Wild Tomato (Solanum orbiculatum subsp. orbiculatum) is a soft small shrub that grows to about 40 cm high. It has yellow-green rounded leaves, that are often a rusty colour when young. The fruit are round and approximately 1 cm in diameter, mainly fruiting in the early summer. This fruit is bitter.


Like many plants of the Solanum genus, desert raisin is a small bush and has a thorny aspect. It is a fast growing shrub that fruits prolifically the year after fire or good rains. It can also grow back after being dormant as root stock for years after drought years. The vitamin C-rich fruit are 1–3 cm in diameter and yellow in color when fully ripe. They dry on the bush and look like raisins. These fruits have a strong, pungent taste of tamarillo and caramel that makes them popular for use in sauces and condiments. They can be obtained either whole or ground, with the ground product (sold as "kutjera powder") easily added to bread mixes, salads, sauces, cheese dishes, chutneys, stews or mixed into butter.

Mardu people would skewer bush tomatoes and dry them so the food was readily transportable.

Berry globular, 10–13 mm diam., pale yellow-green or slightly purple; fruiting pedicels usually 15–30 mm long. Seeds 2.5–3 mm long, light brown

Not Gooseberries. They are a cane fruit like Raspberries, but with damned nasty thorns.

Those look pretty small, and are in natures warning colour. Maybe one of our more knowledgeable native elders could identify them, until then, I'd not try to eat one.

Hmmm, Slug might be closer to right, they do look similar.

If the seeds resemble a passionfruit's, they are native passionfruit. Edible, but I think you aren't supposed to eat too many, as there might be too much calcium oxalate content.

Is this what it looks like alive? With those strange tendrils just before the stem of the fruit?

I can ask my father if you like. He's one of the most senior botanists at the Queensland Herbarium.