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Editor: DonovanBaarda
Time: 2023/03/28 02:33:34 GMT+11 |
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changed: - I have seen and eaten a few fruits of a plant growing in NSW that I was convinced was an Australian "Bush Banana" that I've seen and eaten many times with Aboriginal people at Yuendumu that is called Yuparli in Warlpiri. My mother on her visits to NSW has also picked and eaten these fruits with us, also convinced that it was the same plant. On a recent scout-camp weekend I found and the kids ended up picking heaps of these fruits, which I cooked and shared with everyone, very confident and telling them all about how it was Yuparli. Today one of the mothers approached me and asked "are you sure about that plant? I've looked online and it looks very much like something called Moth-Vine which is poisonous". My initial reaction was "Nah, no way", but then I started searching online for "Moth Vine" and wow, yeah, it really does look the same, and there are lots of pages claiming it is poison. Hmm... that doesn't sound good. But... but... it looks, and even tastes almost exactly like Yuparli! It can't be poison! So I started digging more. Strangely I couldn't seem to find a single page that mentioned "Bush Banana" and "Moth Vine" on the same page. Not a single "huh, that's strange, they are almost identical" page. So I started digging more. Yuparli, AKA Bush Banana's scientific white-fella name is `marsdenia australis <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsdenia_australis>`_ and is native to Central and Western Australia. It is a well known and document Aboriginal Bush Tucker. Moth Vine, AKA Bladderflower, Bladder Vine, Common Moth Vine, Cruel Plant, Cruel Vine, False Choko, Moth Plant, White Bladder flower is `Araujia sericifera <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araujia_sericifera>`_ and comes originally from South America. It has a reputation for being poison, but it's not clear exactly how poison. Some sources limit the warnings to `"exudes a milky latex that can cause allergic reactions" <https://www.business.qld.gov.au/industries/farms-fishing-forestry/agriculture/biosecurity/plants/invasive/other/white-moth-vine>`_. Others also say `"Poisonous to livestock (cattle), domestic animals (poultry and dogs) and humans" <https://www.climatewatch.org.au/species/plants/moth-vine>`_. So what exactly had I been eating (and feeding to others)? The photos of Moth Vine online look exactly like what we were eating. Photos of Yuparli online don't look exactly the same, with the fruit being smoother than the Moth Vine photos which are a bit wrinklier. But those photos show Yuparli fruit at the early (and very yummy when you should pick them) stage of development. What they don't show is what Yuparli looks like as the fruit ages, and it goes wrinklier, eventually going woody, drying out, and splitting to spread the feathered seeds. They look exactly the same, the smell exactly the same, and they taste exactly the same. Except... they weren't exactly-exactly the same. There were subtle differences; they were bigger, they were a bit more wrinkly, and I remember Yuparli tasting a tiny bit sweeter. These were mostly within the range and what you expect with Yuparli, which do get less sweet and more wrinkly as they get bigger. So these seemed like normal Yuparli, just slightly bigger and more over-ripe than normal. So I assumed these subtle differences were down to environmental effects; better soil, more rain, makes them grow bigger, which makes them a bit wrinklier and slightly less sweet. I have seen similar butore different variants of these plants in NSW. There is one that has darker, harder, less wrinkly, fruit with a waxy sort of coating. These looked too different for me to trust, but my Mum says she'd heard of other Aboriginal people eating those ones too. I think these might be `marsdenia rostrata <https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&photo=29&file=48/249/Marsdenia_rostrata_fruit.JPG>`_ and there does seem to be some websites calling these "bush banana" so maybe they are also edible. It could also have been `Marsdenia floribunda <http://luirig.altervista.org/pics/index5.php?recn=167397&page=1>`_ which would have been introduced from Madagascar. After looking at lots of photos of related plants, and seeing how subtle the differences can be, I now think it wasn't Yuparli, but it was a very similar plant. So if it really was Moth Vine, how poisonous could it actually be? It's in the Araujia family which also have a common name (that they share with marsdenia) of "milk vine". A search for "milk vine" stumbled on this; https://www.eattheweeds.com/morrenia-odorata-pest-or-pleasure-food-2/ He is talking about a very similar plant Morrenia odorata (now called Araujia odorata) classified as a weed in North America, Was it Moth Vine? Probably, but there are enough very similar native plants that it could have been something else, and it wouldn't surprise me if many plants identified as Moth Vine, and maybe even online photo's of them, are actually miss-identified other native plants.
I have seen and eaten a few fruits of a plant growing in NSW that I was convinced was an Australian "Bush Banana" that I've seen and eaten many times with Aboriginal people at Yuendumu that is called Yuparli in Warlpiri. My mother on her visits to NSW has also picked and eaten these fruits with us, also convinced that it was the same plant. On a recent scout-camp weekend I found and the kids ended up picking heaps of these fruits, which I cooked and shared with everyone, very confident and telling them all about how it was Yuparli.
Today one of the mothers approached me and asked "are you sure about that plant? I've looked online and it looks very much like something called Moth-Vine which is poisonous". My initial reaction was "Nah, no way", but then I started searching online for "Moth Vine" and wow, yeah, it really does look the same, and there are lots of pages claiming it is poison. Hmm... that doesn't sound good. But... but... it looks, and even tastes almost exactly like Yuparli! It can't be poison!
So I started digging more. Strangely I couldn't seem to find a single page that mentioned "Bush Banana" and "Moth Vine" on the same page. Not a single "huh, that's strange, they are almost identical" page. So I started digging more.
Yuparli, AKA Bush Banana's scientific white-fella name is marsdenia australis and is native to Central and Western Australia. It is a well known and document Aboriginal Bush Tucker.
Moth Vine, AKA Bladderflower, Bladder Vine, Common Moth Vine, Cruel Plant, Cruel Vine, False Choko, Moth Plant, White Bladder flower is Araujia sericifera and comes originally from South America. It has a reputation for being poison, but it's not clear exactly how poison. Some sources limit the warnings to "exudes a milky latex that can cause allergic reactions". Others also say "Poisonous to livestock (cattle), domestic animals (poultry and dogs) and humans".
So what exactly had I been eating (and feeding to others)? The photos of Moth Vine online look exactly like what we were eating. Photos of Yuparli online don't look exactly the same, with the fruit being smoother than the Moth Vine photos which are a bit wrinklier. But those photos show Yuparli fruit at the early (and very yummy when you should pick them) stage of development. What they don't show is what Yuparli looks like as the fruit ages, and it goes wrinklier, eventually going woody, drying out, and splitting to spread the feathered seeds. They look exactly the same, the smell exactly the same, and they taste exactly the same.
Except... they weren't exactly-exactly the same. There were subtle differences; they were bigger, they were a bit more wrinkly, and I remember Yuparli tasting a tiny bit sweeter. These were mostly within the range and what you expect with Yuparli, which do get less sweet and more wrinkly as they get bigger. So these seemed like normal Yuparli, just slightly bigger and more over-ripe than normal. So I assumed these subtle differences were down to environmental effects; better soil, more rain, makes them grow bigger, which makes them a bit wrinklier and slightly less sweet.
I have seen similar butore different variants of these plants in NSW. There is one that has darker, harder, less wrinkly, fruit with a waxy sort of coating. These looked too different for me to trust, but my Mum says she'd heard of other Aboriginal people eating those ones too. I think these might be marsdenia rostrata and there does seem to be some websites calling these "bush banana" so maybe they are also edible. It could also have been Marsdenia floribunda which would have been introduced from Madagascar. After looking at lots of photos of related plants, and seeing how subtle the differences can be, I now think it wasn't Yuparli, but it was a very similar plant.
So if it really was Moth Vine, how poisonous could it actually be? It's in the Araujia family which also have a common name (that they share with marsdenia) of "milk vine". A search for "milk vine" stumbled on this;
https://www.eattheweeds.com/morrenia-odorata-pest-or-pleasure-food-2/
He is talking about a very similar plant Morrenia odorata (now called Araujia odorata) classified as a weed in North America,
Was it Moth Vine? Probably, but there are enough very similar native plants that it could have been something else, and it wouldn't surprise me if many plants identified as Moth Vine, and maybe even online photo's of them, are actually miss-identified other native plants.
