Elaeocarpus eumundi, the tall, upright rainforest tree that screens height without stealing the width of a small garden.
Elaeocarpus eumundi · Also known as Smooth-leaved Quandong, Quandong, Elaeocarpus eumundi
Eumundi quandong is one of the most useful screening trees we grow in Brisbane, and its great gift is shape. It naturally holds an upright, fairly narrow form with dense foliage carried well down the trunk, so it gives you real height to break an overlooking sightline without spreading a wide canopy across a garden that hasn't got the room to spare. The name comes from Eumundi in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, and this is a local rainforest species that feels completely at home in a subtropical south-east Queensland garden.
It is a handsome tree in its own right, not just a green wall. The leaves are glossy and dark, and the new growth flushes a soft pink and bronze that lifts the whole tree several times a year, followed by small cream bell flowers and then the blue quandong fruit that the birds strip in no time. As a screen it does the practical job and looks good doing it, which is exactly why we reach for it on tight, overlooked blocks.
In a Brisbane garden
Being a local rainforest tree, Eumundi quandong suits Brisbane's warmth and humidity without any coaxing, and its upright habit is the reason we keep coming back to it for narrow spaces. Where a spreading shade tree would swallow a small yard, this one gives you a tall, dense column of glossy green, which makes it ideal for lifting a screen against a two-storey neighbour or a raised Queenslander looking down into the garden. Planted in a row it knits into a tall green wall, and left as a single specimen it still reads as a proper tree.
The two things to plan for are moisture and roots. It comes from rich, moist rainforest ground, so it resents drying out completely on a hot, west-facing block and rewards a good mulch and deep occasional watering through summer. Its roots are well-behaved compared with the figs and other notoriously destructive-rooted trees people fear, but it is still a tree, so give it sensible clearance from the slab, the pipes and the boundary rather than planting it hard against the house.
How we design with it
We use Eumundi quandong wherever the problem is height rather than width. On the close-set Brisbane blocks covered in our guide to creating privacy without a fence, the hardest case is an elevated neighbour looking down, and a naturally columnar tree like this one intercepts that downward sightline while keeping its feet out of the usable garden.
It also earns a place in the wider screening plant palette as the tall element behind a lower hedge, giving a layered green edge that reads as garden rather than barrier. Space a screening row to let each tree keep its dense lower foliage, keep the moisture up while it establishes, and it will close over into a soft, evergreen wall.
Where we write about eumundi quandong
Common questions
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