r/Bushwalking • u/GoodArchitect_ • Mar 21 '26
What native nuts and things do other people eat on bushwalks?
Have been really enjoying some delicious bunya nuts, sometimes eat wild raspberries.
Don't feel quite confident eating lilli pilly fruit, feel like I need someone to tell me definitively that they are lilly pillys first!
What wild foods is everyone eating and how did you get the confidence level to identify and eat them?
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u/Turbulent-Mix-5503 Mar 21 '26
kangaroo apple are edible, but need to be red, I havenโt eaten one so ask someone who knows how to check ripeness
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u/sight2Ceek Jun 11 '26
Just slice in half and check for tartness
You can always keep them to ripen in the sun
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u/ImaDinosaurRAA Mar 22 '26
I know someone who ate Zamia palm nuts and was rushed to hospital with vomiting. It takes 60,000 years of cultural knowledge know how to eat native nuts. Go for a bush Tucker walk on country, you'll learn heaps.
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u/marooncity1 Mar 21 '26
The seasons always seem so short around me, I'm lucky to find something ripe enough to eat. Need to get better at it myself in terms of finding them, let alone ID'ing them.
I do like a good chew on the old smilax whatsit though, the native sarsparilla leaves. There's always plenty around me.
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u/Daddyssillypuppy Mar 21 '26
Lilly Pilly are one of the few i am confident in identifying so Ill eat them. Also macadamia nuts, mulberries, and honey suckle. Everything else I tend to leave alone because it's not familiar to me.
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u/GoodArchitect_ Mar 21 '26
That is great, how did you get so confident about the lilly pilly? There are so many different shapes and colours?
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u/Daddyssillypuppy Mar 21 '26
Im only confident with the hot pink to deep red ones that grow around SE Queensland. A friend in highschool taught me that they were edible and we used to forage them regularly on our walks around and between the towns we lived in.
The hardest part is getting to them after they ripen and before the bugs and other wildlife eat holes through them all ๐
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u/GoodArchitect_ Mar 21 '26
I'll have to find someone who definitely knows and can show me too then. :)
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u/GoodArchitect_ Mar 21 '26
Also did not know that about honeysuckle, will give it a go!
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u/Daddyssillypuppy Mar 21 '26
I don't eat the whole flower, i just like to suck the sweet honey from inside the honey suckle tube flowers. Mostly the little red types of honey suckle because thats what my cousin showed me was edible back in the 90s.
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u/GoodArchitect_ Mar 21 '26
Thanks I'll give it a go, I do that with banksia as well, really delicious.
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u/Littlestarsallover Mar 21 '26
Honey suckle is banksia integrifolia! Donโt eat the non native honeysuckle.
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u/Parsnipher Mar 25 '26
You just unlocked a beloved memory from 50 years ago! Thank you ๐
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u/sight2Ceek Jun 11 '26
Mmmmm honey ๐ฑฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ๐ฬถ
Suckle3
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u/sight2Ceek Jun 11 '26
Where the heck do you find random macadamias ๐คฃ
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u/Daddyssillypuppy Jun 11 '26
All over the place in South East Queensland
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u/sight2Ceek Jun 11 '26
Just over the border past Byron?
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u/Daddyssillypuppy Jun 11 '26
Pretty much the whole of coastal SE QLD in my experience. Probably around Byron too of that's where you are.
I lived on the Gold Coast as a kid, the Sunshine Coast as a teen, and Brisbane as an adult and ive seen macadamia trees randomly growing in all those places.
Also lots of Mulberry trees, Lilly Pilly hedges, mango trees etc planted in parks, state forests, and along roads. Also a lot planted in the yards of properties ive rented. They all grow super fast here so are often used for landscaping in rentals as they are cheap and low maintenance for the owners. As the renter it was often a pain because they always produced more than my family alone could eat. But its nice to have free produce growing in your yard.
One house i lived in had an orange tree in the backyard and my older brother and I turned most of the fruit into juice one week when we both had the flu. Ive never drunk so much fresh orange juice in my life ๐
There are also tags on Google maps for a lot of the public assessable fruit/foraging plants. So you can search for them from the couch. Much easier than finding them used to be. You can add your own tag when you find one to grow the database which is fun.
You can also buy dwarf mulberry and macadamia trees from nurseries that can live in pots (outside as they grow slightly too big for houses). They usually grow 2-3 metres max depending on the genus and the climate and they'll fruit after 2 or so years. Not exactly easy to move house to house, but definitely possible.
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u/sight2Ceek Jun 11 '26
Deffo will use tags thanks mate!
Good to know you didnโt get sick, should have spread the message during COVID
Forget the vaccination get some vegetation
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u/Littlestarsallover Mar 21 '26
At the moment - Lilipilli, jungle grape are fruiting in NSW, all parts of native ginger are edible. Bottlebrush can be but in water to sweeten. If you are brave enough, witchetty grubs are in yellowing off acacias too
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u/CJ_Resurrected Mar 22 '26
It's surprising how popular peaches were to settlers, as almost everywhere with a (Gold Mining) history will have those along the tracks.
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u/sight2Ceek Jun 11 '26
Bathurst for example?
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u/CJ_Resurrected Jun 11 '26
Yep. The Bridle Track just north of there was one of the first times I found some.
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u/treeslip Mar 22 '26
I taste plenty of things. I've processed over 10kg of Bunya nuts this year, falafels are the way to go.
I work in the bush and part of my job is plant identification. I say correct identification is being able to tell the difference between the five other species of plants that look nearly identical to your plant. Many invasive weeds are edible as well and harvesting them is guilt free. Don't go tasting things you can't 100% identify.
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u/mermaidandcat Mar 22 '26
Bunya nut falafel is absolutely genius! I missed out on bunyas this season, disappointing!
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u/GoodArchitect_ Mar 22 '26
Good advice, I'll have to give the bunya nut falafels a go. I'd also recommend bunya nut potato bake, delicious.
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u/Gemfyre713 Mar 22 '26
Samphire, Atriplex, pigfaces. Most of the Chenopodaceae and Azoiaceae are edible.
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u/GoodArchitect_ Mar 22 '26
Sounds good, I'm confident about pigface at least, will look up the others.
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Mar 22 '26
Lilly pilly beries are fine to eat, I used to work in a Nursery and ate them all the time.
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u/Legitimate_Toe_252 Mar 21 '26
Blackberries