Habitat
Plants are found in sclerophyll forest, especially in shallow soils, and on granite outcrops in eastern Australia. Their extensive habitat range is from Queensland to Victoria, from the coast to the leeward fringe of the Great Dividing Range, and Tasmania. In more southerly parts of South Australia plants are found in a number of isolated pockets of forest including in a band from the Mount Lofty Ranges, down the Fleurieu Peninsula to Kangaroo Island, in the southern parts of the Yorke Peninsula and the Eyre Peninsula and in the Mount Remarkable National Park area.The foliage is toxic to stock, which meant that most cherry ballart trees were removed from farming land.
Uses
The pale wood is very fine-grained with little figure but often striking colour variation. The timber was historically used for making furniture, gun-stocks, and tool handles. It is also suitable for carving and turning and so is also now used for producing decorative and ornamental pieces of art-work in the Arts and Crafts industries.The fleshy pedicel, the "cherry", is edible and so was used as food by indigenous Australians and by early European settlers. The "fruit" is picked when it is so ripe it is ready to fall from the tree. It may be eaten raw, or cooked.
Early European settlers used branches as Christmas trees.
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