Know your poison
Shedding light on rainforest
A majority of native fruits that grow in the Wet Tropics’ rainforests are poisonous to humans. But in the Cairns Botanic Gardens, you can learn how the aborigines that inhabited the rainforests were not just able to turn these dangerous plants into a mainstay of their diets, but also use them for things like shelter.
IT’S a little known fact that most native fruits that grow in the Wet Tropics’ rainforests are poisonous to humans.
But in a quiet corner of the Cairns Botanic Gardens, you can learn how the Aborigines who inhabited the rainforests turned these dangerous plants into a mainstay of their diets and also used them for shelter, medicine, clothing, utensils, tools and weapons.
The Botanic Gardens has developed an Aboriginal Rainforest Plant Use Garden, where you can view some of the plants used by Aborigines who lived in the Cairns to Mareeba area.
Here are just a few of the plant species that you can find in the garden, and why they were so incredibly important to tribes living off the land. ZAMIA PALM These rainforest cycads reach heights of 20m. They are found in coastal rainforests in wellshaded and moist conditions. As with other members of the cycads, the poisonous seeds were roasted, crushed and leached in water them edible. FISHTAIL LAWYER CANE The thin, flexible trunks of this and other climbing palms made ideal building frames or ropes and string when split. The young shoots were eaten to render to cure headaches. A close relative is the infamous Calamus radicals (Wait-a-While), which entangles unwary passers by with recurved hooks attached to long, thin flagella. The young growing tips of these were chewed and swallowed to stop dysentery and the sap was taken as a drink to relieve symptoms of colds and flu. BLUE QUANDONG Large rainforest trees that are made conspicuous by their old leaves which are bright red. The fruits are a vivid blue with edible flesh and kernels. The fruits must be very soft before they can be eaten and they sometimes have an astringent taste. The seeds are best propagated after passing through an animal digestive tract. They are relished by pigeons, cassowaries, fruit bats, and other birds and animals. FISH POISON TREE This is a large tree found along the beaches and coastal rivers. It has large pom-pom like flowers that bloom in the night and fall to the ground by the middle of the day. The young nuts and green growth were crushed and placed in water to kill fish. Although the plant is extremely poisonous, it kills fish by removing oxygen from the water. SCREW PINE These interesting plants are called screw pines because the leaf insertion pattern resembles the thread of a screw. No male of this species has ever been found and they reproduce only from plantlets which form on the stems, then drop off to develop into new plants. The leaves were used to make string bags, sieve bags, mats, armbands, and baskets.