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Bat’s Wing Coral Tree Erythrina Vespertilio Seeds
Packet of 10+ home grown seeds!
This fella grows right here in our backyard, and is one of the most attractive local native trees.
It is also native to huge parts of NT, NSW, SA, QLD and WA.
Commonly called Bats wing tree, Coral tree, Grey Corkwood, Bat’s Wing Coral Tree, Bean tree, Red Bean tree, and is also known as “ininti” in the Western Desert language.
Used for making Aboriginal tools, like woomeras, coolamons, shields, and even as tinder and base boards in fire drills.
The bark has traditional medicine uses, and as a general sedative, and like all the Erythrina species it contains varying amounts of interesting Alkaloids including erythrane, erythroidine, coralline.
Leaves are said to produce a sedative state when eaten, and the flowers have been used as a tea to induce sleep.
Not something I in anyway recommend.
As the majority of these chemicals are concentrated in the seeds, ingestion of even tiny amounts is very very dangerous and not recommended under any circumstances.
Apparently more than 1/4 of a seed can induce a state of manic behavior and deep depression in some folks and for that reason, I do not suggest anyone eat any of this plant, ever.
The chemical makeup can vary widely between plants and even between seeds from the same pod, so be sensible folks.
Looking and touching is fine, but don’t bloody eat it!
It’s an ornamental tree not a salad.
Anyway, it has a really cool spiky trunk, awesome looking foliage and red flowers, and for that reason is used as an ornamental in parks and gardens all over northern Australia.
It can handle pruning, and I generally cut ours back low, so they bush out and flower more.
I just chop the top off with a cane knife at a slight angle, about waist to shoulder height, and let it reshoot. Works great, and as the wood is nice and soft that’s all you need to do. No need for saws and elbow grease.
It germinates very easily when you do a HWT (Hot water treatment) of the seeds, and after the first month or so it really takes off.
Just put the seeds in a cup, pour in near boiling water, leave them to soak, then plant the next day in a sandy well draining soil mix.
Untreated they can take ages as the seed coat is quite thick, and I suspect that bushfires then soaking rain is what gets them started in the wild.
I have had them flower at just 18months which is pretty impressive.
The honey eaters love it, as do the native bees which use both the pollen from the flowers and the resin from the pods and damaged bark.
That’s about it folks, another native beauty.
Wild harvested in our own backyard, no chems no nasties, no problems!!!
