 The sarcotesta and seeds remains buried for several weeks to become detoxified and consumable, the food product, known as "querning", still contains toxins at the centre of the seeds.The distribution of the plant has been correlated to sites of long term human habitation, close to lakes or springs, and freshwater points at granitic outcrops of the kwongan, although the intervention of other consumers, birds and mammals, complicates a postulate that inadvertent or intentional cultivation is the primary factor in seed dispersal.Animals species involved in dispersal of the plant include birds such as the emu and mammalian species "Trichosurus vulpecula", a common possum known locally as "quumarl".