Thread: Pepperina tree - an enigma

Has a heap of medicinal uses
Also produces a chewing gum and essential oils
Very durable wood that is also very heavy apparently
Applications include fence posts and fancy turnery
Really interesting species this one as it also has a lovely growing form...Mr Fiddleback

Originally Posted by Mr Fiddleback

Has a heap of medicinal uses
Also produces a chewing gum and essential oils
Very durable wood that is also very heavy apparently
Applications include fence posts and fancy turnery
Really interesting species this one as it also has a lovely growing form...Mr Fiddleback

Not sure I'd choose it for any in-ground applications Mr. F. Large branches from both trees on MIL's place rot very quickly if left on the ground. While it's certainly heavy when green, it is only moderately dense when dry. This site quotes a range of .54 to .68, & I'd reckon what I've played with would be at the low end of that range. If, as I read somewhere, all of the trees growing in Aust come originally from a small lot of seeds brought into Adelaide, it's likely the trees here represent a pretty restricted gene pool, so properties of the wood in its native habitat may vary widely from what we find here.

'Twould be a very interesting wood if you could reliably get it to spalt & colour like my bit of 'rescued' firewood!

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

. . . . . . 'Twould be a very interesting wood if you could reliably get it to spalt & colour like my bit of 'rescued' firewood!

Cheers,

Shouldn't be too hard to replicate the spalting Ian - I've got chunks here from 3 different trees from as far apart as Vic and Qld and they all have some level of spalting

Originally Posted by IanW

...Has anyone else found a good use for the stuff (it's not all that great as firewood, by the way)?

I think that you answered your own question, Ian. "...This gnarled old thing at MIL's place is so full of hollows there is more space than wood in the trunk & the the main branches. It provides numerous nesting holes for Wood ducks & Pardalotes which have raised successive broods in it for many a year..."
Perhaps you are trying too hard to find an alternative use for this timber? If its properties are not self evident, then why destroy the home of the birds?

By the way, Queensland Health have issued a mild safety warning on Pepperina trees.
Pepperina (Schinus molle) | Queensland Poisons Information Centre

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

If its properties are not self evident, then why destroy the home of the birds?

i don’t think he is planning to cut the whole tree down.

”Of course they do occasionally succumb to high winds, I've had to clean up some pretty substantial windfalls over the last dozen years or so”

Originally Posted by Lappa

....i don’t think he is planning to cut the whole tree down....]

You are absolutely right, Lappa! And yes, Graeme, as a twitcher of very long standing, I would be very loathe to destroy bird habitat wantonly!

But there are three fairly large trees up there, all of which have shed some sizeable branches from time to time, and I do like using wood that is presented to me on a platter, so to speak. I'll take TTIT's hint & chuck some bits of the next big branch that falls behind the shed & let the fungi work their magic. I've never known how you tell when to arrest the process though. I had some jacaranda that a neighbor chucked on his woodpile, which spalted beautifully, with sharp black lines in a crazy spider-web pattern. It would have been magnificent if I'd got it about a year before I did, but by the time I cut it open, the wood between the spalt lines had deteriorated too far & large patches crumbled when worked.

I suppose it's just semi-educated guesswork....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

You are absolutely right, Lappa! And yes, Graeme, as a twitcher of very long standing, I would be very loathe to destroy bird habitat wantonly!
....

Cheers,

All good, Ian. Its just a little something to which I am becoming increasingly sensitised.

Down here, over half the indigenous bird species nest in tree hollows as do a significant proportion of marsupials, bats and other small animals. It takes over 100 years for a eucalypt to grow large enough and for the hollows to form. The along come the "sustainable forestry" geniuses and clear fell everthing. Without nesting sites those multitude of birds and animals instantly become locally extinct for the next 100 years.