#native cherry

[chlorophyll-and-chitin]

Parmotrema sp. growing on an Exocarpos cupressiformis

18-SEP-2025

Cranbourne Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Vic

[drhoz]

Come To Australia - You Might Accidentally Get Killed (Part 13)

But, you say, Australia is making large efforts to promote our food!

Let me tell you about Australian foods...

The Bunya-Bunya pine will drop football-sized cones on you from 45 meters up.

Macrozamia cycad seeds will kill you unless you pound the seeds in  water that you change daily, for a week, and then roasted (Which begs the question - how the fuck did anybody figure this out?)

Nardoo, or Marselia, is an aquatic fern from the deserts of central Australia, and unless the sporocarps are prepared properly will destroy your bodily reserves of thiamin. The doomed explorers Burke and Wills were given Nardoo cakes by the local peoples, but weren't told how to find or prepare the sporocarps because they weren't clan members and it was woman's business to collect and prepare it. Then one of the morons took a pot shot at the locals, and they weren't given the cakes either.

And this is the Finger Cherry, or Cooktown Loquat. Most of the time, eating it is perfectly fine, and indeed in many area the native peoples and the later European settlers considered it a desirable fruit. But sometimes, in some areas, when you eat it you'll go blind for life. And we have no idea why.