Thrives in any good soil, including chalk. Requires a sheltered position. This species is not very cold-hardy in Britain, though it succeeds outdoors in the mildest areas of the country. Dioecious, male and female plants must be grown if seed and fruit are required.

Fruit - raw. A sweet flavor. The fruit is about 10mm in diameter and contains one seed. The watery sap is drunk or used in the preparation of a beer-like beverage. It is best from trees that are neither too young nor too old. Other reports say that the young shoots are made into a beverage resembling spruce beer.

Seed - it can be sown at any time of the year in a sandy soil in a greenhouse. It can take 18 months to germinate. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. Cuttings of half-ripe wood, July/august in a frame. Easy. Cuttings of ripe wood with a heel in late summer.

Lowland forests, North, South and Stewart Islands.