Edible/medicinal Australian grasses

[tripsis]

I'm interested in knowing which grasses in Australia have been recorded as edible or medicinal. Obviously, many, if not all, grass species have edible seeds, but most of them are either too small, or too difficult to process to make them worth eating, so they aren't really of interest to me. But there are other species out there which can be used as food or medicine, or are just aromatic.

Many species belonging to the genus Cymbopogon are useful, due to their essential oils. They can be used in cooking, medicine, as an insect repellent, or simply because they are aromatic.

Cymbopogon species in Australia (taken from the AVH):

Cymbopogon ambiguus

Cymbopogon bombycinus

Cymbopogon caesius (not native to Aus.)

Cymbopogon citratus (not native to Aus.)

Cymbopogon dependens

Cymbopogon globosus

Cymbopogon gratus

Cymbopogon martinii (not native to Aus.)

Cymbopogon obtectus

Cymbopogon procerus

Cymbopogon queenslandicus

Cymbopogon refractus

Plus a couple of unidentified species. There may be more too.

Of those species, I could find information on the following species:

Cymbopogon ambiguus: used to flavour food and as medicine.

Cymbopogon bombycinus: couldn't really find much on this, but judging by its common name of 'citronella grass', citronella may be one of the main essential oils in it.

Cymbopogon obtectus: used as a medicine.

Anyone know whether any of the other native species are useful or aromatic?

As for other native grass species which are useful...

Apparently Cynodon dactylon is medicinal, with antimicrobial and antiviral properties, as well as being useful to treat urinary tract infections and several other ailments.

Sorghum leiocladum, as one would expect, is useful as a food source, with its seeds being the edible part.

That's all I could find at the moment. I'll look again later and update this if I find anything else.

Anyone else know of other useful species?

[tipz]

triticum aestivum - wheatgrass

[tripsis]

Is Triticum aestivum native to Australia?

Native rice species are of potential food value too, of which there are four species.

Oryza australiensis, O. rufipogon, O. meridionalis and O. officinalis.

Research is being done on them at my university at present.

Edited July 10, 2011 by tripsis

[occidentalis]

I'm a big fan of Cymbopogon ambiguus; I've collected it many times in the Murchison and the smell as you walk through a dry creek bed lined with it on a hot day is amazing. Unfortunately it appears the aromatic oils are extremely volatile because dried material never smells anything like the fresh stuff.

[Mr Stay Puft]

what uni do you go to tripsis?

I am at Latrobe in Melbourne, just finishing up my honours year in biochemistry but looking around for phD's... definately interested in research involving native edibles/medicinals!

[tripsis]

I'm at MQU in Sydney. What have you been doing your honours research on?

[Mr Stay Puft]

i am characterising an anti fungal protein that is present in Glycine max. Lot of fungal growth inhibition assays, some fluorescence microscopy, and a little sequencing... its getting close to the business end of the year and i have probably been slightly slack so i need to start getting some more results and get that damned thesis written up!

[tripsis]

Sounds interesting and very technical. I've avoided chemistry in my degree so far. Might have to do it yet and probably should anyway. What's the aim of the research?

[Mr Stay Puft]

hah... i work for a GM company and the ultimate aim is to find anti fungal proteins that can be expressed in crop varieties to decrease losses due to fungal infection... but i have worked for 'evil' GM companies for a while now and can assure you that this will probably never happen due to the complications of the system... most likely if it is ever produced and sold the fungi will build up a resistance within 2-3 years and it would have all been a waste of time and money... when we should be investigating more sustainable farming methods and investing time into managing distribution of foods across the globe...

but my goals are really to determine its amino acid sequence, its location and therefore suggest a purpose for it in soybean seeds... and test its anti fungal activity against a number of agriculturally significant fungi species... also a little bit of suggesting possible modes of action by visualising its anti fungal activity with fluorescence microscopy...

but after all this 'esoteric' lab based work i really just want to get out into the field, i'd love to work on charactersing native plants, their edibility and phytochemsitry...

[tripsis]

Ah, I suspected it might have been something to do with GM. My brother is at RMIT and Melbourne Uni doing biotech and is interested in gene technologies. I couldn't bring myself to do that sort of work without solid justification, which I doubt I'd find working for anything with commercial interests. Each to their own though.

Working on native plants would be excellent. You should look into the work MQU is doing on the native rice species it that sort of thing interests you.