Bush Tucker Plants and Foods

Bush Tucker or Native Foods :: Plant Profile and Growing Hints

Bush Tucker plants are available for sale online from specialist nurseries, growing and care often means trying to mimic the natural environment where these plants originally come from. Good drainage and full sun are often prerequisites, whoever individual species will require little research to be grown successfully.

Bush Tucker derives its name from the food that was readily available growing naturally in the bush. The local knowledge of which foods were edible was passed down from generation to generation with elders acting as teachers, and over recent years it has been realized what an underused resource naturally growing foods are. Some foods were used for medicinal purposes.

Today these foods are used in industry to provide new and interesting flavors and help develop new and unique Australian recipies and cuisine.

The list of Bush Tucker plants available includes : dorrigo pepper, candlenut, cut leaf mint bush, riberry, lemon myrtle,aniseed myrtle, ginger, Illawarra Plum, cedar Bay cherry, blackbean, moreton bay chestnut, burdekin plum, ,midyim berry sandpaper fig, warrigal greens and bungwall.

Bush Tucker plants or native food plants are increasingly popular both for the variety of taste that can be found, the diversity of plants and with some bush tucker plants now being hybridized production is increased.

Bush Tucker plants are now being used in the food industry as flavoring while some are also becoming available as fresh food such as Midyim or midgen berry, Sandpaper Fig (Ficus coronata) and Beach Cherry '(Eugenia reinwardtiana).

Other well known Bush Tucker Foods with the common names are: