17 September 2011 Tuckertime Walk

Map: Canberra 1:25000

Getting There

This walk was organised and led by the Austrlian National Botanic Gardens:

Saturday 17 September - Tuckertime Walk. Explore edible native plants in the Gardens | 12:30pm Sat & Sun during Floriade | Free | Bookings essential.

Photographs

You canaccess all photographs here.

Walk

Many thanks to Doug L, who showed the 5 of us around. The following notes are from my poor memory, not Doug's excellent references and knowledge:

1 We started with some picked, scented leaved samples including lemon myrtle, a teatree, native mint (this last one just like in my backyard!).

2 Native cherry (cherry ballart). Fruit start around November. The young trees growing since 2003 bushfires may not be old enough to fruit yet.

3 Eucalypts useful for lurps leaving exudates which can be eaten. Also wasp galls "Bush chewing gum".

4 Salt bush (we were now in the Mallee area of the ANBG where I haven't been before) - animals eat it and so it flavours their meat.

5 Wattle seeds - only about 20-25 of the 1000 varieties produce useful seeds.

6 Tree ferns - ingigenous folk used to knock off the top of the ferns to get at the pith - like sago or edible moist flour (you'd better not do this in NNP!).

7 Finger lime tree - northern NSW coast.

8 Backhousia anisata - aniseed plant.

9 Mountain pepper.

10 Bird's Nest Fern - a purgative.

11 Macadamia nut - grows well around Lismore.

The nut is supremely tasty. The oil content of the kernel is higher than 72 per cent, which is the highest for any oil-yielding nut. Out of a possible 4000 different types of food plants, the Macadamia is the only native Australian plant grown as a commercial food crop. (Source: http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/education/Resources/bush_foods/Macadamia_tetraphylla)

12 Bunya Pine (native to SE Qld) - big cones. Can roast seeds. (Is this the source of the big pine cones at Bendora arboretum?)

13 Lemon myrtle tree, Lemon Ironwood.

14 Rock orchids - eat fleshy insides.

15 Plum Pine - rainforest environment - eat softer of dual fruits (I did).

16 Gymea lilly - eat tubers.

17 Mountain plum pine - at higher altitudes. Has plenty of fruit.

18 Mint bush.

19 Cycad base nut - but had to be washed and soaked, then roasted.

20 Brown Pine.

21 Banksia - soaked, sweet nectar on flowers.

Sweet nectar can by sucked out of the flowers or shaken onto your hand and licked off, or the flower spikes can be soaked in water. Banksias were used to carry fire because the smouldering cones could be carried for long distances. (From: http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/education/Resources/bush_foods/Banksia_species)

22 Queensland bottle tree - 'water'.

23 Indigifera - crushed and used as fish stunner.

24 Native Raspberry.

25 Antartic beech - edible fungus grows on it.

26 Austral Mulberry - used as fire lighting stick.

A good reference book is Wild Food Plants of Australia by Tim Low. Ordered it from ANBG book shop.

References:

Aboriginal Use of Native Plants - http://sydney.edu.au/science/uniserve_science/school/curric/stage4_5/nativeplants/gallery/index.html

Aboriginal Bush Foods - http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/plant_info/aboriginal_bush_foods

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This page last updated 28Aug22