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The murnong or yam daisy is any of the plants ''
Microseris walteri ''Microseris walteri'' is an Australian perennial herb with yellow flowers and edible tuberous roots, and one of three plants known as murnong or yam daisy along with '' Microseris scapigera'' and '' Microseris lanceolata''. The plant is found ...
'', '' Microseris lanceolata'' and ''
Microseris scapigera ''Microseris scapigera'' is a yellow-flowered daisy, a perennial herb, found in New Zealand and Australia. It is the only New Zealand species of ''Microseris'', and one of three Australian species along with '' Microseris lanceolata'' and ''Micr ...
'', which are an important food source for many
Aboriginal peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
in southern parts of Australia. Murnong is a
Woiwurrung The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, and Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance. The Woiwurrung people's territory in Central Victoria ex ...
word for the plant, used by the
Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...
people and possibly other clans of the
Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language. History Before British colonisation, the ...
. They are called by a variety of names in the many different
Aboriginal Australian languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
, and occur in many
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
s as part of
Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally u ...
stories. The tubers were often dug out with
digging stick A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in a ...
s and cooked before eating. They were widespread and deliberately cultivated by Aboriginal peoples in some areas, but the hoofed animals introduced by early settlers to Australia destroyed vast areas of habitat, leading to calamitous results for the Indigenous people. The shortage of food led to Aboriginal people stealing food from settlers, in a cycle of violence known as the
Australian frontier wars The Australian frontier wars were the violent conflicts between Indigenous Australians (including both Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) and mostly British settlers during the colonial period of Australia. The first conflic ...
. The township of Myrniong in
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
was named after the murnong. In the 21st century there has been a revival and recultivation of the plant, and an honouring of it in art.


History

The roots of the murnong plants were consumed in large quantities by
Aboriginal people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
in the
colony of Victoria The Colony of Victoria was a historical administrative division in Australia that existed from 1851 until 1901, when it federated with other colonies to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Situated in the southeastern corner of the Australian ...
until the 1840s, when European colonists began using the murnong crop lands for sheep farming.


Botanical naming

The binomial names of the three species ''
Microseris walteri ''Microseris walteri'' is an Australian perennial herb with yellow flowers and edible tuberous roots, and one of three plants known as murnong or yam daisy along with '' Microseris scapigera'' and '' Microseris lanceolata''. The plant is found ...
'', '' Microseris lanceolata'' and ''
Microseris scapigera ''Microseris scapigera'' is a yellow-flowered daisy, a perennial herb, found in New Zealand and Australia. It is the only New Zealand species of ''Microseris'', and one of three Australian species along with '' Microseris lanceolata'' and ''Micr ...
'' are often misidentified, because they were classified under different names until they were clarified in 2016. Murnong is often described as growing a sweet tuber, but this identifies ''Microseris walteri'' rather than the other two plants, which have bitter roots. For more than 30 years Murnong was named as ''Microseris'' sp. or ''Microseris lanceolata'' or ''Microseris scapigera''.
Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (RBGV) are botanical garden, botanic gardens across two sites–Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, Melbourne and Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne, Cranbourne. Melbourne Gardens was founded in 1846 when land w ...
botanist Neville Walsh clarified the botanical name of ''Microseris walteri'' in 2016 and defined the differences in the three species in the table below.


Oral storytelling

Murnong tubers are included in a
Dreamtime The Dreaming, also referred to as Dreamtime, is a term devised by early anthropologists to refer to a religio-cultural worldview attributed to Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology, Australian Aboriginal mythology. It was originally u ...
story about Crow's role in bringing fire to mankind. According to a story told by the
Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...
people, in the Dreamtime fire had been a jealously-guarded secret of the seven Karatgurk women who lived by the
Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower st ...
where Melbourne now stands. These women carried live coals on the ends of their
digging stick A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in a ...
s, allowing them to cook murnong yams. One day Crow found a cooked yam and, finding it tastier than the raw vegetables he had been eating, decided he would cook his food from then on. However, the Karatgurk women refused to share their fire with him and Crow resolved to trick them into giving it up. The story continues and the crow steals the yam, but ends up creating a bushfire. In a Dreamtime story, the
Wotjobaluk people The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. They are closely related to the Wergaia people. Language R. H. Mathews supplied a brief analysis of the Wotjobaluk language (now known as Wergaia), describing what ...
say that the sun was a woman who, when she went to dig for murnong yams, left her little son in the west. Wandering round the edge of the earth, she came back over the other side. When she died she continued to do this.


Indigenous cultivation

The edible tuberous roots of murnong plants were once a vitally important source of food for
Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...
people in the southern parts of Australia. Indigenous women would dig for roots with a yam stick (a
Gunditjmara The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of southwestern Victoria in Australia. They are the Traditional Owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. ...
term for
digging stick A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in a ...
) and carry the roots away in a
dillybag A dillybag or dilly bag is a traditional Australian Aborigines, Australian Aboriginal bag generally woven from plant fibres. Dillybags are mainly designed and used by women to gather and transport food, and are most commonly found in the norther ...
or rush basket. European settler Issac Batey described the cultivation of murnong by Aboriginal people on a sloping ridge of land owned by Sunbury Asylum, in
Sunbury, Victoria Sunbury ( , ) is a satellite town of Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Hume local government area. Sunbury recorded a population of 38,851 at the . Statistically, Sunbury is ...
. He called the cultivation "accidental gardening", while paradoxically suggesting it was an intentional method to increase food supply.


Cooking methods

In western Victoria, baskets were used in the cooking. After being washed, tubers were put into a rush basket, which was placed on an
earth oven An earth oven, ground oven or cooking pit is one of the simplest and most ancient cooking structures. The earliest known earth oven was discovered in Central Europe and dated to 29,000 BC. At its most basic, an earth oven is a pit in the ground ...
, called mirrn'yong mounds. Tubers would roast, half melting into a sweet dark syrup. Another cooking technique uses heated clay elements placed above and below the edible roots. The steam and moisture helps reduce the drying and shrinking of the vegetables.


Early records of murnong consumption

In 1803, convict William Buckley escaped from the settlement at Sullivan's Bay near
Sorrento, Victoria Sorrento is a town on the Mornington Peninsula approx. 100km south of Melbourne Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the Shire of Morn ...
, then lived among the Wathaurong people at the mouth of Thompson Creek. An important source of food for Buckley 'was a particular kind of root the natives call Murning — in shape, and size, and flavour, very much resembling the radish.' Port Phillip settler James Malcolm testified in front of the NSW parliament on the condition of Indigenous people in 1845. Malcolm said, 'There is a nutritious root which he Indigenous peopleeat and are fond of; and that, I think, has greatly diminished, from the grazing of sheep and cattle over the land, because I have not seen so many of the flowers of it in the spring as I used to see. It bears a beautiful yellow flower. The native name of this root is "murnong".' Malcolm referenced Buckley in his description of murnong. He said, 'It is rather agreeable to the taste as a native article of food, and when you squeeze it, there is a sort of milk or creamy substance which comes out of it. I have eaten it many a time, and a man named Buckley who lived among the natives for thirty years before the settlement was formed, tells me, that a man may live on the root for weeks together; and that he has dug them up in great numbers for food.' In 1835, the Tasmanian colonist
John Batman John Batman (21 January 18016 May 1839) was an Australian Pastoral farming, grazier, entrepreneur and explorer, who had a prominent role in the foundation of Melbourne, founding of Melbourne. He also was involved in many attacks against Indigen ...
set up his base camp for the land speculation company
Port Phillip Association The Port Phillip Association (originally the Geelong and Dutigalla Association) was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association fr ...
at Indented Head. While he returned to
Tasmania Tasmania (; palawa kani: ''Lutruwita'') is an island States and territories of Australia, state of Australia. It is located to the south of the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland, and is separated from it by the Bass Strait. The sta ...
to collect his family and additional provisions, the members left at the Indented Head camp were running low on imported food supplies, so they began to eat murnong. The servant William Todd wrote, 'We have commenced eating roots the same as the natives do.' Surveyor and explorer Thomas Mitchell came across a community of Aboriginal people who cultivated and harvested murnong tubers with specialised tools on the plains around the
Hopkins River The Hopkins River, a perennial river of the Glenelg Hopkins catchment, is located in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. Course and features The Hopkins River rises below Telegraph Hill near , and flows generally south, joined by tw ...
on 17 September 1835. Mitchell was wary and when 40 of them approached his camp, he ordered his men to charge at them.


Sheep and cattle grazing

The introduction of cattle, sheep and goats by immigrating early–colonialist Europeans led to the near extinction of murnong, with calamitous results for Indigenous communities who depended upon murnong for a large part of their food. Mitchell had noted that 'the cattle are very fond of the leaves of this plant, and seem to thrive upon it'. Sheep were more destructive, since the murnong was most abundant on the plains and open forests where sheep were introduced. Within five years of the founding of Melbourne, murnong had disappeared from the surrounding area. In 1839, Ngurelban man Moonin-Moonin said, 'There were no ''param'' or ''tarook'' at
Port Phillip Port Phillip (Kulin languages, Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped bay#Types, enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, ...
... too many ''jumbuck'' (sheep) and ''bulgana'' (bullocks, cattle) plenty eat it myrnyong—all gone myrnyong.' The Taungurung people had been pushed off their land and the supply of murnong and other plant foods had greatly diminished as cattle and sheep stock increased on the land. The people were so hungry that they would 'part with anything for a trifle to eat or drink'. On the northern plains of Victoria, Edward M Curr wrote: 'Several thousand sheep not only learnt to root up these vegetables with their noses, but they for the most part lived on them for the first year, after which the root began gradually to get scarce.'


Colonial conflicts

When British settlers moved onto the
Hawkesbury River The Hawkesbury River, or Hawkesbury-Nepean River (Dharug language, Dharug: Dyarubbin) is a river located northwest of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The Hawkesbury River and its associated main tributary, the Nepean River, almost encircle ...
in 1794, they constructed farms by removing the yams and planting Indian corn (
maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...
). The
Dharug The Dharug or Darug people, are a nation of Aboriginal Australian clans, who share ties of kinship, country and culture. In pre-colonial times, they lived as hunters in the region of current day Sydney. The Darug speak one of two dialects o ...
people saw the corn on their land as a replacement carbohydrate of the yams and when the corn ripened, they carried it away. Settlers fired shots on the Dharug people to drive them away, and a series of raids by Aboriginal people was followed by settlers killing seven or eight of them. The Battle of Richmond Hill occurred in May 1795, where 62
New South Wales Corps The New South Wales Corps, later known as the 102d Regiment of Foot, and lastly as the 100th Regiment of Foot, was a formation of the British Army organised in 1789 in England to relieve the New South Wales Marine Corps, which had accompanied ...
soldiers went to the Aboriginal camps at Richmond Hill at night, killing seven or eight people there.
Kate Grenville Catherine Elizabeth Grenville (born 1950) is an Australian author. She has published fifteen books, including fiction, non-fiction, biography, and books about the writing process. In 2001, she won the Orange Prize for Fiction, Orange Prize for ...
's 2005 historical novel ''
The Secret River ''The Secret River'' is a 2005 historical novel by Kate Grenville about an early 19th-century Englishman transported to Australia for theft. The story explores what might have happened when Europeans colonised land already inhabited by Aborigi ...
'' popularised the idea that the yams at Hawkesbury River were murnong, known by the Darug people as midyini, but academics suggest the yam was a different plant. Other conflicts arose when Aboriginal people took potatoes from settler farms, on areas previously used for growing murnong. In April 1838, Tullamareena and Jin Jin were arrested for stealing potatoes from John Gardiner's property in Hawthorn. They were placed in Melbourne's first gaol, but they escaped by setting fire to the thatched roof. In January 1840, Jaga Jaga (Jacky Jacky) and around 50
Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...
men stopped at James Anderson's station in
Warrandyte Warrandyte ( ) is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 24 km north-east of Melbourne's Melbourne City Centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Manningham Local government areas of Victoria, ...
and rooted up potatoes at the farm using
digging stick A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in a ...
s during the night. Anderson confronted them angrily, but Jaga Jaga's men also possessed rifles and a purposely shot past Anderson's ear. They left to Yaring, which led to the
Battle of Yering The Battle of Yering was a conflict between Indigenous Australians of the Wurundjeri nation and the Border Police which occurred on 13 January 1840, on the outskirts of Melbourne.Kath Gannaway, Important step for reconciliation' Star News Group, ...
, but no-one was killed.Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, pp65-67 ''People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days'', Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001


Contemporary revival and conservation

During the 1980s,
Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...
academic Beth Gott documented Australian Indigenous foods with a focus on murnong and also curated the Aboriginal Educational Garden at the university to grow plants that were used by Indigenous people. Gott published her research in the papers ''Ecology of Root Use by the Aborigines of Southern Australia'' in 1982 and ''Murnong—Microseris scapigera: a study of a staple food of Victorian Aborigines'' in the Australian Aboriginal Studies journal in 1983. She also published information about murnong in the books ''Victorian Koorie Plants'' with John Conran in 1991 and ''Koorie plants, Koorie people'' with Nelly Zola in 1992. In 2005, the Merri and Edgars Creek Confluence Restoration Group (MECCARG) formed at
Merri Creek Merri Creek is a waterway in southern parts of Victoria, Australia, which flows through the northern suburbs of Melbourne. It begins near Wallan and flows south for 70 km until joining the Yarra River at Dights Falls. The area where th ...
in Coburg North, Victoria and later renamed as Merri Murnong, with the aim of rejuvenating indigenous cultural landscape including dwindling stocks of murnong, using Gott's research. With the support of
Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...
elders, the group holds an annual Murnong Festival to harvest and cook murnong roots, then conducts a cultural burning. Author Bruce Pascoe helped to form the Indigenous group Gurandgi Munjie in 2011 'aimed not only to recover First Peoples’ traditional foods and culture, but also to become a unique food-led form of reconciliation where the work of Indigenous growers could provide healthy produce for high-end and commercial chefs and restaurants.' Murnong was prominently featured in Pascoe's 2014 book '' Dark Emu: Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?'', which looked at the diaries of European settlers in Australia to understand Indigenous foods and farming methods. A second edition of the book was published in 2018 and became the number two bestselling nonfiction book in Australia for 2019 and number four in the same chart for 2020, which led to a greater awareness of murnong within Australia. Seeds of murnong are now commercially available and the plant is stocked in many nurseries in Australia.


Artwork

In 2019, the
National Gallery of Victoria The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australia's oldest and list of most visited art museums in the world, most visited art mu ...
commissioned a large sculpture called 'In Absence' by
Yhonnie Scarce Yhonnie Scarce is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigenous Austra ...
and Melbourne architecture studio Edition Office. The artwork questions the absence of murnong in Victoria, which were once plentiful prior to colonisation. The artwork consists of wooden tower rises upwards from a surrounding field of
kangaroo grass } ''Themeda triandra'' is a species of C4 carbon fixation, perennial tussock-forming grass widespread in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Pacific. In Australia it is commonly known as kangaroo grass and in East Africa and South Africa it is known ...
, murnong and a path of crushed Victorian basalt. The 9 metre high by 10 metre wide cylinder is clad in a dark-stained Tasmanian hardwood. A narrow vertical aperture, slicing the tall cylinder open, bisects the tower leaving a void and creating a passage into two curved chambers. Inside each, hundreds of hand-blown, glossy, black glass murnong populate the walls and glitter in shafts of sunlight.


Indigenous names of murnong

Murnong is a
Woiwurrung The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, and Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance. The Woiwurrung people's territory in Central Victoria ex ...
word for the plant, used by the
Wurundjeri The Wurundjeri people are an Aboriginal peoples, Aboriginal people of the Woiwurrung language, Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin nation. They are the traditional owners of the Yarra River Valley, covering much of the present location of ...
people and possibly other clans of the
Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language. History Before British colonisation, the ...
. It has many other names in other
Aboriginal Australian languages The Indigenous languages of Australia number in the hundreds, the precise number being quite uncertain, although there is a range of estimates from a minimum of around 250 (using the technical definition of 'language' as non-mutually intellig ...
. Below is a list of the Indigenous names, language groups and locations where the name was recorded. * .
Ngunnawal The Ngunnawal people, also spelt Ngunawal, are an Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal people of southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in Australia. Language Ngunnawal–Gundungurra language, Ngunnawal and Gundungurr ...
(ACT, NSW) * .
Kaurna The Kaurna people (, ; also Coorna, Kaura, Gaurna and other variations) are a group of Aboriginal people whose traditional lands include the Adelaide Plains of South Australia. They were known as the Adelaide tribe by the early settlers. Kau ...
(Adelaide, SA) * , ( for cooked root). Peek Whuurong (Port Fairy, Vic) * . Wannin (Wannon, Vic) * . Bangerang (Echuca, Vic) * .
Yorta Yorta The Yorta Yorta, also known as Jotijota, are an Aboriginal Australian people who have traditionally inhabited the area surrounding the junction of the Goulburn and Murray Rivers in present-day north-eastern Victoria and southern New South Wale ...
(Echuca, Vic) * , , (daisy), (daisy). Wathawurrung, Kulin (Trawalla and Geelong, Vic) * .
Booandik The Bungandidj people are an Aboriginal Australian people from the Mount Gambier, South Australia, Mount Gambier region in south-eastern South Australia, and also in western Victoria, Australia, Victoria. Their language is the Bungandidj langua ...
(South East, SA) * .
Dharug The Dharug or Darug people, are a nation of Aboriginal Australian clans, who share ties of kinship, country and culture. In pre-colonial times, they lived as hunters in the region of current day Sydney. The Darug speak one of two dialects o ...
(Sydney) * . Wemba Wemba (Lake Bogal, Vic) * , .
Ngarigo The Ngarigo people (also spelt Garego, Ngarego, Ngarago, Ngaragu, Ngarigu, Ngarrugu or Ngarroogoo) are Aboriginal Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose traditional lands also extend around the present border with Victoria. They ...
(alpine, NSW and Gippsland, Vic) * (Mudgee, NSW) * , (where means little), , . Gunai/Kurnai (Gippsland, Vic) * . Ngoorialum (Colbinabbin, Vic) * .
Dja Dja Wurrung The Djadjawurrung or Dja Dja Wurrung, also known as the Djaara or Jajowrong people and Loddon River tribe, are an Aboriginal Australian people who are the traditional owners of lands including the water catchment areas of the Loddon and Avoca ...
(East of Grampians, Vic) * (Bacchus Marsh, Vic) * , , , .
Wergaia The Wergaia or Werrigia people are an Aboriginal Australian group in the Mallee (Victoria), Mallee and Wimmera regions of north-Western Victoria (Australia), Victoria, made up of a number of clans. The people were also known as the Maligundidj ( ...
(Lake Albacutya, Lake Hindmarsh, The Mallee, Vic) * (Hamilton, Vic) * .
Woiwurrung The Woiwurrung, also spelt Woi-wurrung, Woi Wurrung, Woiwurrong, Woiworung, and Wuywurung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance. The Woiwurrung people's territory in Central Victoria ex ...
, Kulin (Melbourne) * , ( for cooked root). Kuurn Kopan Noot (North of Port Fairy, Vic) * , also meaning 'finger'.
Boonwurrung The Boonwurrung, also spelt Bunurong or Bun wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of the Kulin nation, who are the traditional owners of the land from the Werribee River to Wilsons Promontory in the Australian state of Victoria. Their territory ...
, Kulin (Melbourne) * . Thura-Yura (Lower Murray, SA) * .
Wiradjuri The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...
(Murrumbidgee, NSW) * . Waverang (West of Mt Cole, Vic) * (root). (cooked root). Djabwurrung, Kulin (Mt Rouse, Vic) * . (Lachlan River, Regent Lake, Bogan River, NSW) * . Watiwati (Tyntynder, Vic) * . Darkinyung (Hunter region, NSW) * (root).
Taungurung The Taungurung people, also spelled ''Daung Wurrung'', are Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language. Their Country ...
, Kulin (Healesville, Vic) * . (Lake Condah, Vic) The
Wotjobaluk people The Wotjobaluk are an Aboriginal Australian people of the state of Victoria. They are closely related to the Wergaia people. Language R. H. Mathews supplied a brief analysis of the Wotjobaluk language (now known as Wergaia), describing what ...
used a counting system from one to 15 when communicating with other clans via
message stick ''Message Stick'' was an Australian television series about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lifestyles, culture and issues. History The weekly half-hour show began screening in 1999 on ABC Television. It featured profile stories, inte ...
s and used , the word for murnong or yam, to count fingers from one to five as part of this system. One: (little finger), two: (ring finger), three: , (middle finger), four: (index finger) and five: (thumb). The township of Myrniong, Victoria was named after the murnong. The area around the You Yangs was called ''Morong-morongoo'' after the murnong that was abundant there in the past.


Table showing the three species


References

{{Reflist, refs= lanceolata Asterales of Australia Flora of Victoria (state) Root vegetables Plants described in 1840 Plant common names