The fruit is a small three-valved top-shaped capsule encasing a single seed that is covered in a red, fatty aril (seedcoat) of 5–6 mm diameter.

Birds will seek out the fruit to feed on the aril, which, although relatively small, is rich in lipids (about half its dry weight).

They may be planted to serve as wind protection of crops and roads, or as live fence posts, and if simply stuck into good soil, small branches will readily root and grow into sizable trees in a few years.

Local residents such as the masked tityra, bright-rumped attila, black-faced grosbeak (and on Hispaniola, the palmchat), are particularly fond of gumbo-limbo fruit, as are migrants such as the Baltimore oriole or the dusky-capped flycatcher.

Gumbo-limbo's rapid growth, ease and low cost of propagation, and ecological versatility makes it highly recommended as a "starter" tree in reforestation, even of degraded habitat, and it performs much better overall in such a role than most exotic species.

[12][13] Gumbo-limbo bark is an antidote to Metopium brownei, also known as chechen tree, which can cause extreme rashes just as the related poison ivy that often grows in the same habitat.