Native Plants, Foods and Medicinal Elements
Cherry Ballart (Exocarpos cupressiformis): The Tree of Balance, Spirit, and Sweet Fruit
Standing gracefully among eucalypts and wattles, the Cherry Ballart (Exocarpos cupressiformis) is one of Victoria’s most distinctive and symbolic native trees.
Its soft, weeping green branches and small red “cherries” — actually swollen stems — conceal a deep cultural and ecological story.
For tens of thousands of years, the Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung, Gunditjmara, Taungurung, and Gunaikurnai peoples have regarded this tree as a source of nourishment, medicine, and spiritual connection.
The Cherry Ballart is a teacher of balance — a semi-parasitic tree that lives in partnership with others, drawing strength without harm, symbolising the interdependence of all life.
It provided fruit for food, wood for tools, shade for ceremony, and lessons about reciprocity and kinship between species and people.
Botanical Description
Scientific name: Exocarpos cupressiformis
Common names: Cherry Ballart, Native Cherry, Cypress Cherry
Family: Santalaceae
Distribution: Widespread across south-eastern Australia — from coastal plains to mountain slopes.
Habitat: Thrives in well-drained soils and open forests, often growing beside eucalypts and she-oaks (casuarinas).
The Cherry Ballart is a small tree or large shrub, typically reaching 3–8 metres in height. Its green, scale-like leaves resemble those of a cypress, and its branches droop elegantly.
In spring, it produces tiny greenish flowers that develop into hard green fruits attached to a swollen, fleshy, red-orange stalk — the edible part often mistaken for the cherry itself.
Cultural and Nutritional Significance
The Fruit of Connection
The red swollen stem beneath the small seed was eaten when ripe, offering a mild, sweet flavour.
For Indigenous peoples of Victoria, this fruit was both a food and symbol — representing generosity and the nourishment that flows through relationships.
On Wadawurrung Country, Cherry Ballart trees were gathered from the volcanic plains and foothills of the You Yangs, Moorabool Valley, and Barwon River basin.
Families shared the fruit during seasonal gatherings in late summer, often while travelling between inland camps and coastal wetlands.
The fruit’s sweetness was subtle yet refreshing, providing energy and hydration. Children were often the first to spot the ripe red fruit glinting in sunlight — a joyful sign of the season’s turn.
A Parable of Reciprocity
Because Cherry Ballart is semi-parasitic, attaching its roots to those of other trees for nutrients, it was seen as a model of mutual care — taking what is needed but not taking all.
Elders used the tree to teach lessons of balance, humility, and interdependence: that no being lives alone, and that harmony requires both giving and receiving.
Medicinal and Healing Uses
Every part of the tree held purpose within Indigenous medicine and ceremony:
Leaves and stems: Crushed or boiled to make infusions for coughs, sore throats, and chest congestion. The mild astringency helped clear mucus and support respiratory healing.
Wood and bark: Ground or soaked for antiseptic washes and poultices applied to wounds and rashes.
Smoke healing: Dried branches were used in smoking ceremonies for cleansing and renewal — particularly after illness or mourning.
Spiritual healing: The tree’s deep roots and parasitic nature symbolised the healing of broken connections between people, families, and Country. Standing under a Cherry Ballart was said to restore emotional balance.
In many Victorian communities, including Wadawurrung and Gunditjmara, the Cherry Ballart was regarded as a guardian tree, often growing near burial sites or ceremonial places (Howitt 1904; Clarke 2009). Its presence signified protection and continuity of spirit.
Ecological Role
Cherry Ballart plays a quiet but crucial role in the forest and grassland ecosystems of Victoria:
It connects to the roots of surrounding plants, exchanging nutrients in complex underground networks.
Provides habitat for small birds and insects, and food for native mammals.
Its dense foliage offers shade and shelter in open woodland.
After fire, it regenerates readily from the root base, helping to stabilise soils and restore ecosystems.
Its parasitic relationship — mainly with eucalypts, acacias, and casuarinas — forms part of a larger symbiotic web that Indigenous land managers have long understood and maintained through cultural burning and observation.
Fire and Regeneration
Cherry Ballart is a fire-resilient species, often one of the first small trees to resprout after a cool burn.
Wadawurrung fire-keepers timed burns to maintain open woodlands and encourage fruiting.
The tree’s post-fire regrowth provided both food and medicine, marking the renewal of life and balance after cleansing fire — a direct embodiment of Country’s healing cycle.
Elders describe this renewal as “spirit returning to land” — when green shoots reappear, the land’s heartbeat begins again.
Wood and Material Use
The timber of the Cherry Ballart is fine-grained and fragrant, used for carvings, spear throwers, and ceremonial tools.
Its flexibility made it ideal for small implements and symbolic items.
Charcoal from its branches was used as pigment in body paint or art, linking its physical and spiritual strength to the expression of story and identity.
Cultural Meaning and Ceremony
Throughout the Kulin Nations, Cherry Ballart held deep spiritual resonance.
Its dual nature — part self-sustaining, part dependent — made it a metaphor for kinship law, teaching that independence is balanced by obligation.
The tree was associated with female energy and creation, nurturing life through its subtle strength.
It often featured in women’s ceremony and initiation gatherings, where fruits and smoke were shared to mark transitions of growth and learning.
Some oral histories also describe Cherry Ballart as a tree of thresholds — a bridge between the living and ancestral realms, its roots connecting the visible and the unseen (Atkinson 2002; Clarke 2009).
Wadawurrung Country: Guardians of the Plains
On Wadawurrung Country, Cherry Ballart trees dotted the basalt plains and river corridors from Ballarat to Breamlea, thriving in well-drained volcanic soils.
They grew alongside murnong (yam daisy), lomandra, and kangaroo grass, forming part of an interconnected ecological mosaic.
Wadawurrung Elders describe these trees as spirit keepers — standing watch over pathways, waterholes, and campsites. Their fruit was shared during journeys, their shade used for rest, and their smoke for healing the mind and spirit.
Even today, when a Cherry Ballart reappears in a revegetation area, it is seen as a sign that Country remembers its old balance.
Colonisation and Disruption
With colonisation, much of the Cherry Ballart’s habitat was cleared for farming and pasture.
European settlers often mistook its parasitic nature as a sign of weakness, removing it to favour “productive” crops.
Yet in doing so, they disrupted complex underground networks that sustained entire ecosystems.
The loss of these trees meant the loss of shade, fruit, and spiritual presence across Country.
By the 1900s, Cherry Ballart had become rare across much of the Victorian plains, surviving mainly in remnant forests and sacred sites (Museums Victoria 2023; RBGV 2023).
Revival and Restoration
Today, Cherry Ballart is once again being planted in cultural and ecological restoration projects across Victoria.
Traditional Owner groups such as the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation, the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation, and Gunditj Mirring are working with botanists and landcare teams to re-establish native cherry populations.
The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and local schools now use Cherry Ballart as a teaching species — an example of interconnected life and Indigenous environmental science.
Indigenous chefs and bushfood enterprises have also begun reintroducing its fruit into modern cuisine, reviving old knowledge through new forms.
Each planting is more than ecological — it is ceremonial, reaffirming the ancient relationship between people and Country.
Scientific and Cultural Insights
PerspectiveKey InsightsBotanySemi-parasitic native tree that connects to host roots for nutrients; regenerates after fire.FoodProduces small, sweet edible fruits (swollen stems) eaten fresh in summer.MedicineLeaves, bark, and smoke used for respiratory and wound healing; spiritual cleansing.EcologySupports biodiversity, stabilises soil, contributes to forest succession.CultureSymbol of reciprocity, spirit connection, and healing between living and ancestral realms.
Conclusion
The Cherry Ballart (Exocarpos cupressiformis) stands as both a healer and a philosopher of Country — a living embodiment of balance, respect, and interconnectedness.
Its fruit feeds, its smoke heals, and its roots remind us that strength is shared, not taken.
For the Indigenous peoples of Victoria, the tree remains a symbol of resilience and reciprocity, teaching that all life is sustained through relationship.
In reviving Cherry Ballart today, communities are not merely restoring a species — they are restoring an ethic of care that reaches back through deep time and forward into the future.
References
Atkinson, J 2002, Trauma Trails: Recreating Song Lines, Spinifex Press, Melbourne.
Clarke, PA 2009, Australian Aboriginal Ethnobotany: An Overview, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.
DEECA Victoria 2022, Traditional Plant Use and Biodiversity in Victoria, Department of Energy, Environment & Climate Action, Melbourne.
Gott, B 2019, The Yam Daisy: A History of Aboriginal Plant Use in Victoria, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.
Howitt, AW 1904, The Native Tribes of South-East Australia, Macmillan, London.
Museums Victoria 2023, Aboriginal Plant Use Collections, Museums Victoria, Melbourne.
Pascoe, B 2014, Dark Emu: Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture, Magabala Books, Broome.
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV) 2023, Indigenous Trees and Ecological Networks of Victoria, RBGV, Melbourne.
Written, Researched, and Directed by James Vegter (2 November 2025)
MLA — Magic Lands Alliance
Sharing the truth of Indigenous and colonial history through film, education, land, and community.
www.magiclandsalliance.org
Copyright MLA – 2025
Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.