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Tasmannia is a genus of woody, evergreen flowering plants of the family Winteraceae. The 40 species of Tasmannia are native to Australia, New Guinea, Sulawesi, Borneo, and the Philippines. The Winteraceae are magnoliids, and are associated with the humid Antarctic flora of the Southern Hemisphere. The members of the family generally have aromatic bark and leaves, and some are used to extract essential oils. The peppery-flavored fruits and leaves of this genus are increasingly used as a condiment in Australia. The peppery flavour can be attributed to polygodial.
Backhousia citriodora is a flowering plant in the family Myrtaceae, genus Backhousia. It is endemic to subtropical rainforests of central and south-eastern Queensland, Australia, with a natural distribution from Mackay to Brisbane. Other common names are sweet verbena tree, sweet verbena myrtle,, and lemon scented backhousia.
Bush tucker, also called "bush food", is any food native to Australia and used as sustenance by Indigenous Australians, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, but it can also describe any native fauna or flora used for culinary or medicinal purposes, regardless of the continent or culture. Animal native foods include kangaroo, emu, witchetty grubs and crocodile, and plant foods include fruits such as quandong, kutjera, spices such as lemon myrtle and vegetables such as warrigal greens and various native yams.
Tasmannia lanceolata, commonly known as Tasmanian pepperberry or mountain pepper, is a shrub native to woodlands and cool temperate rainforest of south-eastern Australia. The shrub varies from 2 to 10 m high. The aromatic leaves are lanceolate to narrow-elliptic or oblanceolate, 4–12 cm long, and 0.7–2.0 cm wide, with a distinctly pale undersurface. Stems are quite red in colour. The small cream or white flowers appear in summer and are followed by black, globose, two-lobed berries 5–8 mm wide, which appear in autumn. There are separate male and female plants.
Davidsonia is a genus containing three rainforest tree species native to Australia, that are commonly known as the Davidson or Davidson's plum. The fruits superficially resemble the European plum, but are not closely related. All species have an edible sour fruit with burgundy coloured flesh and are highly regarded as gourmet bushfood.
Citrus australasica, the Australian finger lime or caviar lime, is a thorny understorey shrub or small tree of lowland subtropical rainforest and rainforest in the coastal border region of Queensland and New South Wales, Australia.
Syzygium anisatum, with common names ringwood and aniseed tree, is a rare Australian rainforest tree with an aromatic leaf that has an essential oil profile comparable to true aniseed.
Syzygium luehmannii is a medium-sized coastal rainforest tree native to Australia. Common names include riberry, small leaved lilly pilly, cherry satinash, cherry alder, or clove lilli pilli.
Citrus glauca, commonly known as the desert lime, is a thorny shrub or small tree native to Queensland, New South Wales, and South Australia.
Jean-Paul Bruneteau is a French-Australian chef and author who is credited with playing a pioneering role in the development of an authentic Australian cuisine based on indigenous ingredients.
Vic Cherikoff is regarded as an authority on Australian native foods and its associated industry, having been involved in the selection and commercialization of many of the 35 or so indigenous Australian plant foods now in the market place.
The modern Australian native food industry, also called the bushfood industry, had its initial beginnings in the 1970s and early 1980s, when regional enthusiasts and researchers started to target local native species for use as food. Indigenous Australians had been harvesting many species for use as food and medicines for millennia. In the mid 1970s Brian Powell recognized the commercial potential of quangdong fruit and began its cultivation in orchards. Following this, the CSIRO became involved in quangdong research.
Tasmannia stipitata, commonly known as the Dorrigo pepper or northern pepperbush is a rainforest shrub of temperate forests of the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, Australia. Leaves are fragrant, narrow-lanceolate to narrow-elliptic, 8–13 cm long. Dark bluish to mauve berries follow the flowers on female shrubs. The species is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants.
Davidsonia pruriens, also known as ooray, Davidson's plum, or Queensland Davidson's plum, is a medium-sized rainforest tree of northern Queensland, Australia.
Buchanania obovata is a small to medium-sized understorey tree in woodlands native to northern Australia, in particular in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory. Common names include green plum and wild mango.
The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 20,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, and below the family level has a highly endemic angiosperm flora whose diversity was shaped by the effects of continental drift and climate change since the Cretaceous. Prominent features of the Australian flora are adaptations to aridity and fire which include scleromorphy and serotiny. These adaptations are common in species from the large and well-known families Proteaceae (Banksia), Myrtaceae, and Fabaceae.
Plant genetic resources are plant genetic materials of actual or potential value. They describe the variability within plants that comes from human and natural selection over millennia. Their intrinsic value mainly concerns agricultural crops.
References
Notes
- ↑ Cribb, A.B.,& Cribb, J.W. Wild Food in Australia, 1974, p16
- ↑ "Profile Peter Hardwick", Australian Bushfood Magazine, Mar/Apr 1997 "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2013-09-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ↑ Profile
Bibliography
- Bruneteau, Jean-Paul,Tukka, Real Australian Food, 1996, ISBN 0-207-18966-8.