Today I planted an Apinia caerulea from Ken and in Australia they just call it “native ginger”. It is popularly grown in home gardens and it is found in the understory shade of the Australian rain forests. The roots and the berries are edible and the flowers are fragrant. It grows about 6 feet, nice red color on the underside of the leaves. I planted it in full shade.
This is one of many bush foods the aboriginals consumed. Only 3% of the continent is rainforest and it provides habitat for more than half, 60% of Australia’s plant species.
The roots of the native ginger are used like a regular ginger except that it’s more earthy and resiny. The center part of a new stem has a slight ginger flavor and the pulp of the blue berries are sour like a lemon. The aboriginals would eat them while they were hiking through the bush to activate salivation in their mouth. It’s unclear if the seeds are edible or toxic, but it is usually discarded. This is how they could detect each other’s pathways in the forest when you followed the ginger patches.
I also planted an unknown type of cardamom and a pitcairnia, a terrestrial bromeliad.
Originally posted on 2021-10-18, part of the daily planting journal behind Ha’a Chocolate’s food forest on Hawai’i Island.