Planchonia careya
species of plant
Planchonia careya is a tree species in the family Lecythidaceae. Common names include cocky apple, cockatoo apple and billygoat plum. The species should not be confused with Terminalia ferdinandiana, with which it shares some common names. The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia' records that Indigenous Australians of the Mitchell River area referred to this plant as "Ootcho" while those of the Cloncurry River area referred to it as "Go-onje" and "Gunthamarrah".
Uses
Indigenous Australians consumed the raw ripe fruit of this species. The taste is stated to be similar to quince.
Indigenous Australians pulverized the inner bark of this species and added it to small water bodies to act as a fish toxin, allowing fish to be easily collected from the surface of the water. This is known to have been a practice used by Indigenous Australians at Cleveland Bay. The roots of the species were also used as a fish toxin by Indigenous Australians.
Indigenous Australians boiled the inner bark of this species in water and the resulting liquid was used as an antiseptic wash for open cuts and sores.
“Planchonia careya” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Planchonia, careya and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Planchonia careya” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Planchonia, careya and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 3, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7200983. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1889.
A general summary may omit uncertainty, sample limits or methodological disagreement that is explicit in the technical record. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Planchonia careya” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.