Common name:
Yam Daisy, Murnong, Native Dandelion

Family name:
Asteraceae

Botanical name:
Microseris lanceolata

Flowering/fruiting season:
Summer - autumn flowering

Location:
In ACT, common in subalpine habitats and sparsely distributed at lower altitudes (Burbidge & Gray, 1976:395-6)

Use:

• Food
• Tubers can be eaten raw but were most often cooked in baskets (Zola & Gott, 1992:8)
• A staple food in S. Uplands; sweet milky tubers were roasted (Flood, 1980:96)
• M. scapigera Alpine Murnong - more fibrous but still edible root; Murnong was gathered by women using digging sticks (Zola & Gott, 1992:8)

Notes:

• Tubers are a significant source of energy (Zola & Gott, 1992:8)
• Tubers available spring, summer, autumn, less palatable in winter (Gott, 1995)
• M. lanceolata and M. scapigera have been used synonymously 'but Alpine Murnong is actually a different species.' (Zola & Gott, 1992:8)
• M. scapigera tubers taste 'sweet with a flavour of coconut ... more like a radish than a potato.' When boiled taste 'sweetish and moist but not particularly like anything else.' (Cribb & Cribb, 1987:171)

Language names:

• mewan : 'yam' Ngarigo (Mathews, 1908)
• minngar : Wiradjuri (Gott, 1995)
• murnong : Wurunjeri, Geelong (Zola & Gott, 1992:7)

Horticulture :
Most situations are suitable (Wrigley & Fagg, 1998:174)

Similar species:

Use code:
ROOT