Corkwood

Duboisia myoporoides, called corkwood, is a shrub or tree native to New Caledonia and to high-rainfall areas on the margins of rainforest in eastern Australia. It has thick, corky bark. The leaves are obovate to elliptic, meaning egg-shaped to oval, about 4 to 15 centimetres long, and the small white flowers are borne in clusters, followed by globose, purple-black berries that are not edible. The leaves are a commercial source of pharmaceutically useful alkaloids, including hyoscine, also called scopolamine, which treats motion sickness and stomach disorders. The same alkaloids make all parts of the plant poisonous. A bush medicine that Aboriginal peoples of the eastern states of Australia developed from the tree was used by the Allies in the Second World War to stop soldiers getting seasick when they crossed the English Channel for the invasion of Normandy.