Tasmanian Plants

Actually, it would be quite inaccurate for me to call this a pilgrimage.

My partner and I were on our way to Cradle Mountain and driving by Chudleigh when I noticed a strange building. Without a doubt, it was designed to catch one’s attention. It was the Melita Honey Farm.

The word ‘honey’ was enough to make me walk through those doors and when I did so I thought I found paradise.

Pure stacks of honey jars on the shelves, assembled as neatly as bees would construct their cells. (Pardon the bad analogy).

Honey… of a huge variety of flavors, of single origin honey of both Tasmanian and mainland trees and shrubs. Honey… also of some of exotic plants. Honey…blended with macadamia, ginseng, ginger…chocolate!!!…

Fortunately I did not have to buy a small tub of everything just to try. A wide selection of their honey produce was also laid out on a table in open jars for sampling. It was absolutely hedonistic.

Other than books and petrol, few things inspire a budget conscious botanist to whip out his wallet. I was not leaving the honey farm empty-handed. I got myself two small jars of honey, a bottle of non-alcoholic honey mead and a bottle of apple cider vinegar with honey.

Honey was not the only produce. There were beeswax products, propolis, nougats, royal jelly and more.

The shop itself was also partly a museum for a self guide tour, in which they featured documentaries of how their honey was made and even displayed a section of hive with live bees.

Perhaps what tickled my nerves the most was to see an ice cream bar in the shop selling honey ice cream! My partner and I got a leatherwood and Blue Gum ice cream respectively. The ice cream tasted like any good ice cream would but I suspect that it was dousing the curiosity it inspired that contributed the largest part to the satisfaction.

The honey pilgrimage to Chudleigh. Make it at least once in a lifetime!

Tasmania’s floral emblem, the Blue Gum (Eucalytus globulus), is a tree of many talents.

It has one of the largest blossoms among eucalypts.

It is among some of the world’s tallest flowering trees.

It is the major source of eucalypt oil and an important source of pulpwood.

I could list much more but that would be best elaborated in a post on it’s own. Suffice it to say for now that the Blue Gum is a Tasmanian icon, a view shared by Prof. Brad Potts during a public lecture on the 12 Nov 2009 celebrating 100 years of Biology in UTAS. During the lecture, Prof. Potts expounding on the cultural, ecological, economic and scientific significance of the tree.

But while the science and verbal transmission of the Blue Gum’s natural history will appeal to our intellect, and the Blue Gum’s large showy blossoms to our visual senses, there must be more that this world renown tree has to offer.

And indeed, few avenues offer as visceral an experience as the modality of taste in enabling an appreciation the Blue Gum’s contribution to Tasmanian culture.

There is little one may eat of the Blue Gum though.

It is possible to make a tea from the leaves of the Blue Gum but my plans to do that was quickly superseded when I saw a jar of miellerie unheated Blue Gum honey sitting at Meredith’s Orchard Fruit and Vegetable market at Margate, South East Tasmania.

Like the Prickly Box honey I’ve written about in a previous post, the Blue Gum honey was raw and unprocessed. It was however, a little more creamy in texture and had less of an aromatic fragrance.

The honey smelled somewhat like the very mildly foetid scent of fresh eucalypt blossoms. The subtle flavor of the honey does not immediately hit one’s tongue. I spread a teaspoonful of the creamy substance on my tongue and proceeded to lather it on my palate. Doing that allowed me to experience the full taste of the honey. The words that come to mind are ‘cool’ and ‘mildly minty’. The light pleasant flavour is sure to be pleasing to some.

While it might still be a while before Blue Gum honey comes close to achieving the kind of fame Leatherwood honey enjoys, Blue Gum honey is a must try for anyone wishing to imbibe in Tasmania’s botanical produce. Then one might proudly say:

I have not only seen the floral emblem of Tasmania…I’ve tasted it!

Honey must really be one of the highlights of the gastronomical adventures of a botanist!

To me, tasting a plant, or a product derived from it is another way of knowing a plant. A kind of communion.

For years I have admired the faithful blossoms of the Christmas Mintbush (sometimes simply called Christmas bush) (Prostanthera lasianthos var. lasianthos). These blossoms are without question one of the greatest attention grabbers of the wet eucalypt forest in summer. Up close, an reddish ‘heart’ pattern is evident in the throat of the corolla.

Even in it’s non-flowering seasons, the Christmas Mintbush is an attractive tree, with glossy leaves bearing toothed margins. And as may be expected of members of the mint family (Laminaceae), the Christmas Mintbush gives off the characteristic and pleasant minty smell when the leaves are crushed.

But it was only this year that I got to partake of the Christmas Mintbush’s true virtue – I bought a small 160g jar of Christmas Mintbush honey.

There is little point trying to describe the subtle nuances of taste, though I try (See post on Prickly Box Honey).

Christmas Mintbush honey. Heavenly sweet, of course. I could perhaps add that there was no minty over or undertones, which was not a bad feature. A pure flavour of floral fragrance.

Sublime?

Unquestionably.

Left to my partner and I, the small jar stood no chance of lasting the day. Winnie the Pooh would have been put to shame.

Go bush walking in any dry forest or heath in Tasmania and it is unlikely that one will miss spotting the Prickly Box (Bursaria spinosa). It is one of the most ubiquitous of Tasmania’s dry forest shrubs.

The Prickly Box is also an attractive plant with great potential for native gardening or bonsai-ing. While it is probably hard for those uninitiated in botany to guess what the Prickly Box might be related to, those with an eye for ornamentals might find the Prickly Box resembling Privets (Lingustrum spp.) or Box trees (Buxus spp.).

Surprisingly, however, the Prickly Box belongs to the Pittosporaceae, making it a relative of the commonly cultivated Sweet Pittosporum (Pittosporum undulatum).

Unobtrusively, this native shrub has made it’s way into health shops.

As part of a gradual move toward healthier living and eating, my partner and I visited one such health store in town, Goulds Naturopathica.

Whilst browsing through vials of essential oils and packets of herbal teas, we spotted a jar of miellerie honey on the shelves and the words “Prickly Box” caught my attention. We bought the jar on the spot.

Upon getting home, we wasted no time in trying our purchase. Plunging a teaspoon into the jar,  we were surprised at the consistency of the honey — it was hard like frozen butter.

Certainly not your average honey on which you can use a honey dipper!

I ate a small piece and I must say it is among the most fragrant of honeys I have ever tasted, way exceeding y expectations and better than some of the best leatherwood honey I’ve sampled.

With the spoonful of honey chunks she dug out, my partner made a mug of honey beverage and was duly impressed at the superb taste.

As the honey is organic (I don’t know of any Prickly Box plantations anyways), it’s a little pricey, but it is definitely worth trying!