Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Exocarpos nanus
Common name
Alpine ballart
Family
Santalaceae
Where found
Heath, herbfields, in the shelter of boulders and shrubs or sprawling over rocks, raised areas in swamps, and in Sphagnum bogs. Kosciuszko National Park and north to the western edge of the ACT.
Notes
Shrub to 0.1 m tall, or prostrate, to about 1 m diameter, rooting at the nodes. Branchlets grooved and angular to flattened, hairless, green or yellowish green. Leaves mostly opposite each other, scale-like, triangular, 0.05–0.1 cm long. Flowers unisexual, yellow-green, sometimes tinged with red, inconspicuous, about 1.5 mm in diameter, with 4-6 'petals'. Flowers in clusters of 1–4. Flowering: September–February. fleshy stalk of the nut dark red, edible but not palatable.
All native plants on unleased land in the ACT are protected.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Exocarpos~nanus (accessed 22 January, 2021)
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