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Blueberry Ash

Elaeocarpus reticulatus · Elaeocarpaceae · all Elaeocarpus records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Global; Global compilation (published in Australia); Tasmania, Australia
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution: No state distribution is normalized.
Native range: No current cited or legacy state native range is normalized.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: No hardiness value is normalized.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Blueberry Ash (Elaeocarpus reticulatus) — Photo: (c) T. Hammer, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Form: tree
Region: Australia; Tasmania, Australia
Rated in: Global; Global compilation (published in Australia); Tasmania, Australia
Family: Elaeocarpaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rur…: remove from the Building Protection Zone; avoid in the Fuel Modified Zone [Texas Building Protection Zone] (with its avoid rating)

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (2)

Fire Resisting Garden Plants for the Urban Fringe and Rural Areas — Tasmania Fire Service (Chladil & Sheridan; photographs Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens) · 2017 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: utas-tree

“High Flammability”
Safer Gardens: Plant Flammability & Planning for Fire — Lesley Corbett / Australian Scholarly Publishing · 2021 book / public sample · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: meta-aggregator

“11th most flammable plant out of the 79 they tested” · original source

The sample describes NSW research that contradicted low-flammability list placements; the author removed her tree as too risky.

Listed without a rating (9)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

9 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “time to flaming (s): 3.2” · score 3.2 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 1210; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel dead; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Clarke2014-1; sampling october. Primary study Clarke2014: Clarke, P. J., Prior, L. D., French, B. J., Vincent, B., Knox, K. J., & Bowman, D. M. (2014). Using a rainforest-flame forest mosaic to test the hypothesis that leaf and litter fuel flammability is under natural selection. Oecologia, 176, 1123-33.
- “flaming duration (s): 10.3” · score 10.3 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 1234; Sustainability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel dead; predrying yes; device burning bench; site Clarke2014-1; sampling october. Primary study Clarke2014: Clarke, P. J., Prior, L. D., French, B. J., Vincent, B., Knox, K. J., & Bowman, D. M. (2014). Using a rainforest-flame forest mosaic to test the hypothesis that leaf and litter fuel flammability is under natural selection. Oecologia, 176, 1123-33.
- “time to flaming (s): 12.5” · score 12.5 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 1258; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Clarke2014-1; sampling october. Primary study Clarke2014: Clarke, P. J., Prior, L. D., French, B. J., Vincent, B., Knox, K. J., & Bowman, D. M. (2014). Using a rainforest-flame forest mosaic to test the hypothesis that leaf and litter fuel flammability is under natural selection. Oecologia, 176, 1123-33.
- “flaming duration (s): 11.3” · score 11.3 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 1282; Sustainability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device burning bench; site Clarke2014-1; sampling october. Primary study Clarke2014: Clarke, P. J., Prior, L. D., French, B. J., Vincent, B., Knox, K. J., & Bowman, D. M. (2014). Using a rainforest-flame forest mosaic to test the hypothesis that leaf and litter fuel flammability is under natural selection. Oecologia, 176, 1123-33.
- “time to flaming (s): 10.78” · score 10.78 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 9677; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Murray2013-1; sampling march to april. Primary study Murray2013: Murray, B. R., Hardstaff, L. K., & Phillips, M. L. (2013). Differences in leaf flammability, leaf traits and flammability-trait relationships between native and exotic plant species of dry sclerophyll forest. PLoS One, 8, e79205.
- “time to flaming (s): 1.5” · score 1.5 (FLAMITS — time to flaming (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 19377; Ignitability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Murray2023-1; sampling ND. Primary study Murray2023: Murray, B. R., Hawthorne, T., Curran, T. J., Krix, D. W., Wallace, M. I., Young, K., ... & Webb, J. K. (2023). Shoot flammability patterns among plant species of the wildlandurban interface in the fire-prone Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. International Journal of Wildland Fire, Online early.
- “burning duration (s): 32.2” · score 32.2 (FLAMITS — burning duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 19378; Sustainability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Murray2023-1; sampling ND. Primary study Murray2023: Murray, B. R., Hawthorne, T., Curran, T. J., Krix, D. W., Wallace, M. I., Young, K., ... & Webb, J. K. (2023). Shoot flammability patterns among plant species of the wildlandurban interface in the fire-prone Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. International Journal of Wildland Fire, Online early.
- “maximum flame temperature (°C): 507.3” · score 507.3 (FLAMITS — maximum flame temperature (°C))
  
  FLAMITS record 19379; Combustibility measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Murray2023-1; sampling ND. Primary study Murray2023: Murray, B. R., Hawthorne, T., Curran, T. J., Krix, D. W., Wallace, M. I., Young, K., ... & Webb, J. K. (2023). Shoot flammability patterns among plant species of the wildlandurban interface in the fire-prone Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. International Journal of Wildland Fire, Online early.
- “estimated burnt biomass (%): 40.2” · score 40.2 (FLAMITS — estimated burnt biomass (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 19380; Consumability measurement; plant part branches; fuel all; predrying yes; device grill; site Murray2023-1; sampling ND. Primary study Murray2023: Murray, B. R., Hawthorne, T., Curran, T. J., Krix, D. W., Wallace, M. I., Young, K., ... & Webb, J. K. (2023). Shoot flammability patterns among plant species of the wildlandurban interface in the fire-prone Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. International Journal of Wildland Fire, Online early.

Fire-resistant trees instead

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Oak
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Fire-resistant trees listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata ·

Elaeocarpus reticulatus (Blueberry Ash). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/elaeocarpus-reticulatus/. Last verified 2026-08-23.