Section Editor Kayleigh Greig urges you to enjoy the true Australian cuisine straight from your backyard.
Your garden can be the biggest enemy of bushland. Pretty overseas shrubs and vines can rapidly turn invasive, overpowering native species and reducing the suitability of food and habitat for our gorgeous wildlife. Trust me, as a bush regenerator, I spend hours every day ripping introduced weeds out of every vegetated corner. So, why not keep your backyard native? Sydney is home to some of the world’s most unique flora, and it’s even more exciting when you can eat it too. Not to mention, most Australian stuff doesn’t need fertiliser and copes with low maintenance since it’s born and bred here. Plus, eating locally helps reduce fossil fuels wasted on transportation. Even if you don’t have a garden of your own, knowing which plants around you are and aren’t edible is not only fascinating but potentially useful if you ever end up in a survival situation (as unlikely as that may be). Following is a selection of my personal recommendations, but there are MANY more (and I had to cut the complete list for fear of overwhelming you…), so please view this as a starting point. Enjoy!
Dianella caerulea
Blue Flax Lily
These indigo berries are deliciously sweet.
Syzygium smithii
Common Lilly Pilly
Indigenous people fed these sour pink berries to early settlers who suffered from scurvy due to their high Vitamin C content.
Lambertia formosa
Mountain Devil
Sweet nectar can be sucked right out of the bases of these flowers, but beware – the spiky leaves are what give this its name.
Cissus antarctica
Kangaroo Vine
This common vine has edible blue-black berries akin to grapes, though more acidic in taste.
Eustrephus latifolius
Wombat Berry
The orange fruits are edible, as are the tubers.
Smilax glyciphylla
Sweet Sarsaparilla
The leaves can be sucked on for a pleasant liquorice taste or used as a tea substitute.
Viola hederacea
Native Violet
These tiny flowers make a beautiful addition to salads.
Callistemon, Grevillea, Banksia & Melaleuca
Bottle Brush (pictured) and other various genera
The flowers can be soaked in water to make a cordial, or the nectar can simply be licked off.
Acronychia oblongifolia
White Aspen
One of my top picks; the crisp white fruits of this tree taste remarkably like sour lemonade icy poles.
Remember, identifying plants can be tricky and a mistake can be fatal, so never consume anything you’re not 100% confident in. If you’re planning to plant, make sure to research which ones are native to your particular area and vegetation community – something endemic to the Northern Territory, whether it’s Australian or not, does not belong here, and even a rainforest species exclusive to Sydney won’t thrive in sandy soil. The app Trees Near Me can give you a general indication. These suggestions are just a few of my favourites from the Sydney area, but there are many more you can check out in plant ID books such as Native Plants of the Sydney Region by Alan Fairley and Philip Moore or Field Guide to the Native Plants of Sydney by Les Robinson.
I’d like to thank the indigenous people who uncovered such knowledge and for their continued custodianship of this beautiful land on which we live.
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