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The bush pantry

14/6/2014

1 Comment

 
Wattle seed icecream, anyone? Bracken ointment? A cumbungi bag? Terri Allen lists some locally indigenous plants useful for food, fibre and medicine.
FERNS
Pteridium esculentum, Austral Bracken
  • The rhizomes are edible late summer to autumn – pound to extract the starch and cook as cakes on the coals.
  • Tips of the fronds are nutty – eat raw.
  • Eat uncurled fronds (fiddle heads) – heat and eat.  High in protein and zinc. 
  • Leaves and stalks were made into a drink
  • Brown skin from the rhizomes (underground stems) was peeled, boiled and the decoction drunk as an antidote for pain.
  • Rhizome stem used to treat diarrhoea and intestinal inflammation.
  • Rhizome can be boiled in lard or oil to make an ointment for wounds.
  • Used to prepare leather.
  • Juice from young stems used to relieve insect bites.
  • Juice used in Underwood’s snake antidote.
  • Poisonous to introduced domestic animals.
  • Initiates the regeneration of degraded land – holds the soil from eroding, fronds cool the soil and maintain humidity to allow plant germination.
  • Important coloniser.
  • Reproduces vegetatively so makes viruses ineffective.
  • Five poisonous principles in bracken – heat in cooking destroys these poisons.
 
MONOCOTYLEDONS
Dianella revoluta, Spreading Flax-lily
  • Aborigines ate the fruits (but some poisonous), seeds (sweet nutty flavour), roots after pounding and roasting.
  • Used the berries for a permanent blue dye.
  • Leaves made a strong fibre for string and plaited in baskets.
Ficinia nodosa, Knobby Club-sedge
  • Used for weaving.
Juncus pallidus, Pale Rush
  • Used for weaving.
 Lomandra longifolia, Spiny-headed Mat-rush
  • Aborigines soaked the flowers to make a sweet drink, ate the tiny creamy flowers and seeds.
  • Important plant for string manufacture and weaving e.g. baskets, eel traps. Leaves picked, split into two, dried for 3+ days and dampened 24 hours to make pliable.
  • Used for tying up limbs, for bandages.
Phragmites australis, Common Rush
  • Aborigines ate the tuber as a medicine – for arthritis, jaundice, food poisoning.
  • Underground shoots are like bamboo shoots – edible.
  • Sharpened ends of the stems were used to skin animals and to cut the umbilical cord.
  • Stems were used as hafts for spears, cut into segments for necklaces and nose ornaments, used as snorkels when catching water birds.
  • Stems were woven into rope for bags and baskets.
  • Early settlers used the plant for thatch and explorer Eyre made a thatched hut.
  • Today used in wetlands to purify water.

Poa labillardierei, Common Tussock
  • Woven into string for nets, baskets, mats.
Triglochin procerum, Water Ribbons
  • Edible tubers.
Typha species, Cumbungi
  • Aborigines baked the underground stem, chewed it to extract the starch and the stringy leftovers were rolled into twine.
  • The stem tasted of leek, the young shoots like artichoke, the pollen nutty.  New shoots were eaten raw, roots and stem baked.  Pollen could be baked into a cake.
  • The starchy tuber was used for dysentery.
  • Aborigines used Cumbungi string to make large nets, the flower head for torches.
  • Cumbungi pollen has been used as an absorbent in surgery and a dressing for wounds.
  • Soft down was a bandage for wounds, pillow stuffing and used for flotation in life rafts.
DICOTYLEDONS
Acacia mearnsii, Black Wattle
  • Aborigines chewed the gum or mixed it with water to make a jelly.
  • Wattle barkers from Van Dieman’s Land pre-1835 used bark in tanning.
  • Aborigines used bark and twigs as a poison to stun fish.
  • Timber used for boat building as could be easily steam-bent.
Acacia melanoxylon, Blackwood
  • Aborigines infused bark in water and bathed arthritic joints.
  • The gum was edible.
  • Inner bark fibres were used for string, to make fishing lines.
  • Bark and twigs used as a poison to stun fish.
  • Timber was used for spears, woomeras, boomerangs, shields, coolamons.
  • Was used to make walking sticks, gun stocks, racquets, sounding boards of pianos, beer barrels, casks for whale oil, cabinet timber.
Acacia sophorae, Coast Wattle
  • Aborigines steamed the young pods over a fire, eating the cooked seeds.
  • Liquid from the bark used to tan skins, fishing nets and sails.
  • Blossoms cooked in fritters and pikelets.
  • Wattle seed in biscuits, cakes, icecream (dried seed twice roasted and ground).
  • Stabilises coastal dunes, provides shelter.
Allocasuarina verticillata, Drooping Sheoak
  • Named after the cassowary as the leaves resemble the bird’s plumage.
  • Aborigines ate the young shoots and emerging cones.
  • Wood was suitable for boomerangs, spears and woomeras.
  • Needles could be used for tinder, bedding, although ghostly wind through the leaves kept people from camping in the groves.
  • Easily split, it was used by settlers for shingles and firewood.
  • Sapwood to make a gargle for toothache.
Banksia integrifolia, Coast Banksia
  • Aborigines soaked the flower cones to make a sweet drink; flower syrup was used for sore throats and colds.
  • Dry flower cones were used as strainers or as fire carriers.
  • Early settlers filled the dried cones with dripping and used them as night lights.
  • Timber was used for bullock yokes, boat knees and for wood turning.
  • Honey producers put the hives into groves of banksias.
Bursaria spinosa, Sweet Bursaria
  • Contains aesculin, a product in sunburn creams and UV filters and prescribed in medicines. 
  • Soaked leaves turn the water blue, absorbing ultraviolet light; add vinegar or lemon juice and water turns red; add caustic soda, back to blue.  Acts like litmus paper.
  • Useful in gardens, farm corridors.
  • Flowers attract native wasps which lay their eggs in Christmas Beetle larvae and thus stop defoliation.
Eucalyptus obliqua, Messmate
  • Aborigines made coarse string for bags and nets from the inner bark.
  • Bark was used for fishing torches, tinder, canoes.
  • Leaves can be used for dyeing: yellow, green, grey.
  • Timber for Wonthaggi mines, sleepers, shingles, joinery, furniture, wine casks, fence palings.
  • Used in paper pulp.
Eucalyptus pryoriana, Coast Manna
  • Koala habitat; old trees have hollows for birds, animals, bees.
  • Aborigines moistened the bark and leaves and applied to sore eyes; leaves were chewed to cure diarrhoea; the smoke from burning leaves reduced fever.
  • Aborigines ate lerp (manna) and the sugary pellets of dried sap caused by insect borers.
  • Timber used for shields, coolamons, water containers.
Leptospermum laevigatum, Coast Tea-tree
  • Cook and early explorers used the tips to make a tea to prevent scurvy.
  • A passable lemony tea can be made from the tips.
Leucopogon parviflorus, Coast Beard-heath
  • Ripe berries were nutritious and thirst-quenching in summer.
 Melaleuca ericifolia, Swamp Paperbark 
  • When in flower, the snapper are on the bite.
  • Indicator of swampland – soaks up excess moisture.
  • Aborigines used the flowers for a sweet drink, the soft papery bark to swaddle babies.
  • Bark was used to make fishing floats.
  • Wood was suitable for spears, clubs, digging sticks.
 Melaleuca squarrosa, Scented Paperbark
  • Nectar and crushed leaves were made into a drink.
  • Planted to subdue malarial vapours in swamps.
Myoporum insulare, Common Boobialla
  • Edible but bitter fruit.
  • Infuse the branchlets in boiling/hot water – with the liquid scrub the head to treat general ailments.
  • Use as a windbreak or quick-growing shelter belt.
  • Fire retardant.
Rhagodia candolleana, Seaberry Saltbush
  • Aborigines ate the leaves and berries (which are bitter).
  • Squashed berries gave a dye, used by the settlers as red ink.
Rubus parviflorus, Native Raspberry
  • Ripe berries were an Aboriginal delicacy.
  • Raspberry leaf tea was used as a gargle for sore throats, for diarrhoea and to ease pain.
Sambucus gaudichaudiana, White Elderberry
  • Edible berries.
 Solanum aviculare, Kangaroo Apple
  • Berries when soft are edible but not tasty – some say too poisonous to eat.
  • Rub-on treatment for sunspots and skin cancers (Curaderm cream, produced Brisbane).
  • Steroidal saponins in leaves, stems, fruit (solasodin) – major source of steroids; contraception pill, treat asthma and arthritis, sex hormones used for menopausal disorder, infertility and impotence.  Huge plantations are grown in Russia and Hungary to source the contraceptive pill.
This list formed the basis of a walk Terri Allen led recently at the Inverloch RACV Resort for members of the Australian Plant Society. 
1 Comment
Pat Dale
4/7/2020 05:28:37 pm

Well done , need more of this information about our First Nation People and helps develop a sense of pride.

Reply



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