Tetragonia tetragonioides

Common Name: Warrigal Green

Transcript of Aunty Fran Bodkin explaining the uses of Tetragonia tetragonioides:

Tetragonia tetragonioides is quite a wonderful plant as are any of its other species which also grow in the Sydney area, any of the other Tetragonia species. It’s so useful, it makes the most beautiful ground cover and that’s just its beauty. It’s soft and if kids are playing and fall they fall on the softness rather than the grass and get the grass stains on their clothes or knees or anything like that.

The leaves have to be picked at night. They contain oxalates but if you pick it at night it ceases to produce oxalates because it needs the sunlight. You either then just blanch it in water to remove the hairs or you can rub it between your hands to destroy the hairs.

Also you can pick it when it’s growing in dense shade but there’s always the risk that the sun has shone on it during the day. As I said,

it was dipped in hot water before being eaten or you cooked it just like spinach and it has the same value as spinach – same food value as spinach.

(Captain James) Cook used it to prevent scurvy when he discovered it, he wrote pages and pages about it saying how good it was.