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NOTE ON BUNG WALL (BLECHNUM SERRULATUM, 

 RICH.), AN ABORIGINAL FOOD. 



By Thos. L. Bancroft, M.B., Edin. 

 (Communicated hy J. H. Maiden^ F.L.S., (tc.) 



Occasionally I have heard the aborigines speak of " Bungwall," 

 a plant which in former times, and to within thirty years ago, 

 served them as food ; indeed, it and the nuts of the Bunya Bunya 

 (Araucaria Bidwilli, Hook.) were the most important of their 

 vegetable foods in Southern Queensland. 



On Bribie Island in Moreton Bay it grew plentifully and to a 

 large size. The chance of finding some of the stones used in the 

 preparation of it induced me to take a couple of blacks and go 

 there to investigate the subject. No account is given of Blechnum 

 serrulatum having been used as a food by the blacks in the writings 

 of A. Thozet,* Edward Palmer,! F. M. Bailey, J. H. Maiden or 

 R. Brough Smyth. Mr. Bailey, however, knew that this fern 

 served as food for the blacks, but had not mentioned the fact in 

 his works on the Flora of the Colony. 



Blechnum serrulatum is a freshwater swamp fern growing to 

 the height of six feet ; it has a wide distribution, not alone in 

 Queensland but throughout the world. The whole root or rhizome 

 is the part eaten ; it is first dug out with a sharpened stick, dried 

 in the sun for a short time, roasted and afterwards bruised, when 

 it is ready to be eaten in conjunction with fish, crabs, and oysters. 



The Bungwall stone in not unlike a stone tomahawk, the sharp 

 edge being used to bruise the rhizome against a slab of bloodwood 



* Pamphlet printed at the Bulletin ofiSce, Rockhampton, 1866 : "Notes 

 on the Vegetable Foods of the Aboriginals of Northern Queensland." 



t On Plants used by the Natives of North Queensland, Flinders and 

 Mitchell Rivers, for Food, Medicine, &c., Royal Soc. N.S.W. Aug. 1888. 



