Another seaside/salt marsh plant evident on the Yorke peninsula was Karkalla or Pigface.
binomial name : Carpobrotus rossii
common name : Pigface or Karkalla (aboriginal name)
look alikes: Disphyma crassifolium (round-leaved pigface) - also edible
C rossii is the South Australian species - we have C glaucesens in Qld - we planted some in our yard awhile ago but it is still quite small.
It has thick and fleshy leaves with a triangular cross section - they are about 5-10cm long ( esp C glaucesens) and about 1cm wide. The flowers are a light purple colour. When the fruit develops it has a salty strawberry flavour and apparently was a popular food of the Aborigines. The leaves can be used as a salt substitute when cooking. I look forward to trying some fruit sometime - I have tasted the leaves and they are salty like the Samphire described yesterday.
The only pubmed abstract of note was about an extract of a pigface having anti-bacterial activity. Nutritionally the fruits would be useful in terms of anti-oxidants/vitamins but I was unable to locate actual details.
Note on the photos - I am fairly sure the photos are of Carpobrotus rossii and not the look alike Disphyma crassifolium- as this trip was not planned we did not take any reference texts and thus uncertainty arises, especially when these two plants are so similar. Apologies if they are mixed up!
No comments:
Post a Comment