- Pipefest Global Challenge(7 days)
- Annual General Meeting(18 days)
- Father's Day in the Garden(35 days)
- Botanica Green Living Festival(76 days)
Aboriginal Plants Walk
The Aboriginal Plants walk features plants used by the local aborigines, the Gumbayngirr peoples, for food. drink, shelter, medicines and weapons.
The walk starts in the Rare and Endangered section at a beautiful Melaleuca quinquinervia, a tree very important to the Aboriginal peoples. The water repellent quality of the bark is ideal for making containers for food and water storage, a raincoat or even to mend a holed canoe. It can be wrapped around a sprained or broken limb as a splint. Crush the young leaves and inhale the released aromatic oils to relieve sinus and runny noses.
Bush tucker plants include mat rushes, tall saw sedge, swamp water fern, and grey mangrove. Seeds from the native ginger and round leaved geebung, the fruit of the blue flax lily, and the copious nectar of the Pink Bloodwood made sweet snacks and drinks along the way.
Look also for medicinal plants: The young leaves and shoots of pink lasiandra alleviate diarrhoea, while the soaked roots yield a mouthwash to relieve toothache. Native sarsaparilla leaves are high in vitamin C, and boiled can be drunk as a tonic for coughs and chest troubles.
Spear grass trees were highly prized as a food source and weaponry. The rough leaves of the sandpaper fig were used to sharpen spear tips.
Insect-free bedding can be made from the needles of the swamp she-oak covered with bracken. The old cones of the familiar Coastal Banksia, are excellent for cooking fires, and to carry fire to the next campground.
A comprehensive brochure describing bush tucker plants is available at the Information Centre, and the walk is well sign-posted.