Tasmanian Plants

Weeds can be a avenue of gastronomical adventure. Today I’ve had my first taste of a weed called Onion Grass (Romulea rosea) of the Iris family (Iridaceae). The scientific name actually refers to the Roman emperor Romulus and the specific epithet ‘rosea‘ alludes to the flower’s pink rosy petals. Other common names of this plant include Guildford Grass and Rosy Sandcrocus.

Onion grass is an endemic of the Western Cape Province in South Africa. It is actually a rather attractive plant, the pink flowers having a yellow center with dark streaks radiating from it. The green unripe fruits of the Onion Grass appear in late spring, on a stalk that curves downward toward the soil, presumably getting ready for seed dispersal. In summer the fruits dry out and split, releasing numerous brown seeds.

Perhaps as a result of it’s efficient dispersal strategy and it’s ability to produce corms, Onion grass has become a permanent fixture in grassy landscapes in Australia and Tasmania, and pops up unfailingly every spring.

I highly doubt that the Tasmanian aborigines had much opportunity to make Onion grass part of their diet but there is no reason why WE cannot included it as a bush tucker plant. However, please see my DISCLAIMER if you should attempt to eat any plant described under my Bush Tuck posts.

Though small (c. 1 cm in length), the unripe fruit of the Onion grass makes for a nice snack. It might appeal to those with a sweet tooth. I could graze on this all day. My partner took an instant liking to it too. Apparently, we are latecomers to this bush delight. Many older Australians on the mainland have relished the Onion grass fruits in their childhood days (see discussion on Flickr). Some people even refer to the fruits as ‘Plum Puddings‘.

Peeling the fruit wall off to get to the fleshy seeds seems pointless for such a small fruit. It was simpler to just bite into the fruit and chew till the sweet juices of the seeds are exhausted.

The small pea-sized turnip-shaped corms are edible too. Assuming what I can only hope approximates the flair of an aborigine, I dug up some corms using an ad hoc digging stick, pealed away the brown outer skin, and chewed on white-fleshed interior.

The initial taste was one of very concentrated water chestnuts (Eleocharis dulcis) but this was followed by a rather bitter aftertaste.

I probably wouldn’t eat too many corms if I could help it. However, I have read that Long-billed Corellas (Cacatua tenuirostris) and Water Hens (Porphyrio porphyrio) seem to like the corms.

Next spring I’d be looking out for more ‘Plum Puddings’.

It is common knowledge that the grassland ecosystem is one of high botanical biodiversity. Even disturbed grasslands can have a rather high diversity of a mixed bag of native and exotic plants.

Whilst strolling along the side of a 300m stretch of road in the Queens domain I decided to do an amateur-naturalist survey.

I took the road as an informal transect and count the number of grass genera that I could discern along that 300 m stretch, just on the side of the road I was walking.

I collected some of the grass and laid them out to photograph, as shown below.

Here are some of my results of the impromptu identifications, with the numbers corresponding to the genus identity of the grasses in the photograph:

1. Greater Quaking-grass (Briza maxima)
2. Lesser Quaking-grass (Briza minor)
3. Poa bulbosa
4. Sweetgrass (Glyceria sp.)
5. Silvery Hairgrass (Aira caryophyllea)
6. Poa sp.
7. Fescue (Festuca sp.)
8. Cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata)
9. Kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra)
10. Speargrass (Austrostipa sp.)
11. unknown sp.
12. Loose Plumegrass (Dichelachne inaequiglumis)
13. Rice millet (Piptatherum miliaceum)
14. Great Brome (Bromus diandrus)
15. Ratstail Fescue (Vulpia myuros)
16. Bearded Oat (Avena barbata)
17. Sweet Vernalgrass (Anthoxanthum odoratum)

Although only 17 species are featured in the photograph, there is not a shadow of doubt that I have missed quite a few species.

For example, there were definitely more than two species of Speargrass (Austrostipa) and a few other more genera that I had seen previously when walking along that road.

Nevertheless, just on the basis of what I have collected and laid out there are at least 14 genera of grasses, all just on one side of a 300m stretch of road!

Such richness!

For a fan of biodiversity (weedy or not) and of grasses, a ramble around such a grassland in springtime is simply irresistible.

Cudweed (Vellereophyton dealbatum), a little noticed but exquisite weed in Tasmania

Out of necessity, this post is going to have mild philosophical overtones as it points at an emotional journey I believe that most, if not all, naturalists take.

As a naturalist there can be a tendency to want to focus on what is being lost. The evidence of this is going to be everywhere. I have spent untold hours giving thought to and feeling rotten about plant extinction and the threats faced by may native plants: Climate change, irresponsible land owners, forestry, invasive weeds, etc, etc.

However, after much wallowing I realized the futility in focusing on the reality of all those facts.

The overriding desire of a naturalist is to appreciate nature. In appreciation one finds solace and beauty. One is in tune.

To give excessive thought to destruction or perceived threats is mentally and emotionally pathological to the innermost nature of a naturalist.

Roundleaf Wilsonia (Wilsonia rotundifolia), a threatened plant of salty places

The more passionate the naturalist, the keener his awareness, perhaps in scientifically quantifiable numbers, what biological treasures are out there. Likewise, the easier it is to start taking stock of the decline of a species.

Yet, in choosing to be INNUNDATED by facts of that which is unwanted we degrade our experience of enjoying beauty.

Make no mistake. I do not mean we should tolerate the destruction of the natural landscape. There certainly are individuals whose lot is to work for the preservation of nature. There is a fine line to draw between naturalists and conservationist.

What I do mean however, is that whether or not we take a proactive conservationist stance we can choose to visit the physical and emotional places that sing to us and not mourn (for long) and be bitter over those that have been lost.

Buttonleaf Everlastingbush (Ozothamnus scutellifolius), a Tasmanian endemic and nothing short of a botanical curiosity

Whatever the state of the natural resources, I want to continue to take beautiful pictures of plants, whether they be native or adventive. I want to appreciate their time and space. I want to learn from them, be in awe of the evolutionary journeys they have taken, and know them for all they have become.

Those that have been lost to extinction, I will acknowledge and appreciate that they once graced this beautiful island, in a more abundant and glorious state. I will not lament (not for long at least) their lost but I shall honor their memory.

And extinction is not always an absolute. Just recently, Hibbertia rufa, a plant previously thought extinct, was rediscovered. It will be events like these I will choose to give my attention to. I imagine that in the field, such delightful findings can only occur by grace and by an attention to beauty. And are not all plants beautiful?

It has been said before that ‘Truth is beauty and beauty is truth. That is all ye need to know’.

I cannot agree more.

I was up at the peak of the Queen’s Domain almost a month ago on the 29th of March when I came across an odd looking grass right in the midst of flowering.

While I don’t claim to know anywhere close to all the grass species in Tasmania, I am familiar with the gist of many of the genera. However, this specimen didn’t look like any grass genus in Tasmania that I could place a finger on.

The closest thing the spikelets reminded me of was another weedy grass in the genus Paspalum but the structure of the inflorescence was totally wrong.

I tried keying it out with the Curtis-Morris Student’s Flora Volume 5 to no avail.

I needed the expertise of a master, which is when I deferred to maestro Greg Jordan.

As I threw my hands up in surrender he whipped out his treasured tome  – the $250 Flora of Victoria Vol. 2. We were going to consult this tome.

Learning the nitty gritty of grasses can be quite an involved process, requiring an attention to inconspicuous and reading lines of esoteric sounding jargon for floral parts (e.g, glumes, lemmas, paleas, etc), but that really is part of the fun.

Initially, our efforts at keying the species out seemed to go nowhere. We ended up at various other species which do not look one bit like our mystery plant.

Then when we were about to give up Greg noticed an awn (a bristle-like appendage) sticking out from one of the spikelets.

And then it was as if an embolism popped.

While our mystery plant was slightly less adorned in the awns as it might normally be, it keyed out easily to Sorghum halepense (Johnson grass), an African native.

I have seen Sorghum grasses before but I didn’t make the connection for this one as I had previously only seen Sorghum in a mature state, with their attractive voluptuous pearly seeds.

Sorghum halepense is recorded in Victoria as a weed although at this stage I am not sure if it has spread beyond the Domain in Tasmania. There was just maybe one or two clumps of it and I reckoned that it hitchhiked on the tyres of an automobile (probably from mainland Australia).

Weed or no, Sorghum halepense is a very attractive grass with panicles full of crimson-tinged spikelets and exquisitely bold feathery stigmas.

I’ll be back again for a rendezvous with it next year.