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Seedcakes
Bush bread, or seedcakes, refers to the bread made by Aboriginal Australians by crushing seeds into a dough that is then baked. The bread is high in protein and carbohydrate, and forms part of a balanced traditional diet. It is also sometimes referred to as damper, although damper is more commonly used to describe the bread made by non-Indigenous people. With the arrival of Europeans and pre-milled white flour, this bread-making process has almost disappeared (although women were still recorded to be making seedcakes in Central Australia in the 1970s). The tradition of cooking bread in hot coals continues today. Bread-making was a woman's task. It was generally carried out by several women at once, due to its labour-intensive nature. It involved collecting seasonal grains, legumes, roots or nuts, and preparing these into flour and then dough, or directly into a dough. One of the traditional ingredients was the seeds of kangaroo grass. Bread-making from seeds Collecting ...
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Acacia Tetragonophylla
''Acacia tetragonophylla'', commonly known as curara, kurara or dead finish, is a tree in the family Fabaceae that is endemic to arid and semi-arid parts of central and western Australia. Description Curara grows as a tall shrub or small tree up to a height of and has an intricate and often straggly habit with glabrous branchlets. Like most ''Acacia'' species, it has phyllodes rather than true leaves. These are slender and needle-like with a length of up and a width of . When young they are soft and pliable, but as they mature they become hard, rigid and very sharp. The glabrous phyllodes are formed in groups of two to six on dwarf, knotty and lateral branchlets or singly on new shoots. The phyllodes have a slender linear shape ending in a sharp point and are mostly pentagonal to compressed in cross-section with five to seven prominent nerves. In Western Australia it blooms between May and October producing yellow flowers. The flowers are yellow, and held in spherical clusters. ...
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Acacia Aneura
''Acacia aneura'', commonly known as mulga or true mulga, is a shrub or small tree native to arid outback areas of Australia. It is the dominant tree in the habitat to which it gives its name ( mulga) that occurs across much of inland Australia. Specific regions have been designated the Western Australian mulga shrublands in Western Australia and Mulga Lands in Queensland. Description Mulga trees are highly variable, in form, in height, and in shape of phyllodes and seed pods. They can form dense forests up to high, or small, almost heath-like low shrubs spread well apart. Most commonly, mulgas are tall shrubs. Because the mulga is so variable, its taxonomy has been studied extensively, and although ''A. aneura'' is likely to be split into several species eventually, there is as yet no consensus on how or even if this should be done. Although generally small in size, mulgas are long-lived, a typical life span for a tree undisturbed by fire is of the order of 200 to 300 yea ...
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Portulaca Oleracea
''Portulaca oleracea'' (common purslane, also known as little hogweed, or pursley) is an annual (actually tropical perennial in USDA growing zones 10–11) succulent in the family Portulacaceae. Description The plant may reach in height. It has smooth, reddish, mostly prostrate stems and the leaves, which may be alternate or opposite, are clustered at stem joints and ends. The yellow flowers have five regular parts and are up to wide. Depending upon rainfall, the flowers appear at any time during the year. The flowers open singly at the center of the leaf cluster for only a few hours on sunny mornings. The tiny seeds are formed in a pod, which opens when the seeds are mature. Purslane has a taproot with fibrous secondary roots and is able to tolerate poor soil and drought. The fruits are many-seeded capsules. Seed set is considerable; one plant can develop up to 193,000 seeds. The seeds germinate optimally at a temperature above 25 °C; they are light germinators, with ...
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Triodia (plant Genus)
''Triodia'' is a large genus of hummock-forming bunchgrass endemic to Australia. They are known by the common name spinifex, although they are not a part of the coastal genus '' Spinifex''. Many of the soft-leaved members of this species were formerly included in the genus ''Plectrachne''. It is known as ''tjanpi'' in central Australia, and is used for basket weaving by the women of various Aboriginal Australian peoples. A multiaccess key (SpiKey) is available as a free application for identifying the ''Triodia'' of the Pilbara (28 species and one hybrid). Description ''Triodia'' is a perennial Australian tussock grass that grows in arid regions. Its leaves (30–40 centimetres long) are subulate ( awl-shaped, with a tapering point). The leaf tips, that are high in silica, can break off in the skin, leading to infections. Uses Spinifex has traditionally had many uses for Aboriginal Australians. The seeds were collected and ground to make seedcakes. Spinifex resin was a ...
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Legume
A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock forage and silage, and as soil-enhancing green manure. Well-known legumes include beans, soybeans, chickpeas, peanuts, lentils, lupins, mesquite, carob, tamarind, alfalfa, and clover. Legumes produce a botanically unique type of fruit – a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces (opens along a seam) on two sides. Legumes are notable in that most of them have symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in structures called root nodules. For that reason, they play a key role in crop rotation. Terminology The term ''pulse'', as used by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is reserved for legume crops harvested solely for the dry seed. This excludes green beans and green peas, which a ...
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Acacia Victoriae
''Acacia victoriae'', commonly known as gundabluie or bardi bush, is a shrub-like tree native to Australia. Subspecies: ''A. victoriae'' subsp. ''arida'' Pedley Distribution and ecology Found in arid and semi-arid areas, the ''Acacia victoriae'' is generally found in alkaline soils including clayey alluvials, grey cracking clays and saline loams on floodplains, alluvial flats, rocky hillsides and ridges. Animals such as birds and small mammals are known to use the tree as protection. The seeds and foliage also offer a source of food to animals.Worldwide Wattle (2012). ''Acacia victoriae'' Benth. Retrieved from: http://www.worldwidewattle.com/infogallery/utilisation/acaciasearch/pdf/victoriae.pdf Description Mature ''Acacia victoriae'' grow into a shrub-like tree with multiple trunks. They reach a height of about 5–6 meters and are moderately fast growing. It has a life-span of about 10–15 years. The tree has a large root system, known to extend to 20m. It is able to surviv ...
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Husk
Husk (or hull) in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. In the United States, the term husk often refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize (corn) as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective outer covering of a seed, fruit, or vegetable. It can also refer to the exuvia of insects or other small animals left behind after moulting. In cooking, hull can also refer to other waste parts of fruits and vegetables, notably the cap or sepal of a strawberry. The husk of a legume and some similar fruits is called a pod. Husking and dehulling Husking of corn is the process of removing its outer layers, leaving only the cob or seed rack of the corn. Dehulling is the process of removing the hulls (or chaff) from beans and other seeds. This is sometimes done using a machine known as a huller. To prepare the seeds to have oils extracted from them, they are cleaned to remove any foreign objects. Next, the seeds have their hulls, or oute ...
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Harvester Ant
Harvester ant, also known as harvesting ant, is a common name for any of the species or genera of ants that collect seeds (called seed predation), or mushrooms as in the case of ''Euprenolepis procera'', which are stored in the nest in communal chambers called granaries. They are also referred to as Agricultural ants. Seed harvesting by some desert ants is an adaptation to the lack of typical ant resources such as prey or honeydew from hemipterans. Harvester ants increase seed dispersal and protection, and provide nutrients that increase seedling survival of the desert plants. In addition, ants provide soil aeration through the creation of galleries and chambers, mix deep and upper layers of soil, and incorporate organic refuse into the soil. Seed dispersal Ants may play an important role in the dynamics of plant communities by acting either as seed dispersal agents or as seed predators, or both. During the day, these ants search the savannas for vegetation and plant seeds, and ...
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Dry Season
The dry season is a yearly period of low rainfall, especially in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which moves from the northern to the southern tropics and back over the course of the year. The temperate counterpart to the tropical dry season is summer or winter. Rain belt The tropical rain belt lies in the southern hemisphere roughly from October to March; during that time the northern tropics have a dry season with sparser precipitation, and days are typically sunny throughout. From April to September, the rain belt lies in the northern hemisphere, and the southern tropics have their dry season. Under the Köppen climate classification, for tropical climates, a dry season month is defined as a month when average precipitation is below . The rain belt reaches roughly as far north as the Tropic of Cancer and as far south as the Tropic of Capricorn. Near these latitudes, there is one wet season and one dry season annually. At the ...
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Kimberley Region Of Western Australia
The Kimberley is the northernmost of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami deserts in the region of the Pilbara, and on the east by the Northern Territory. The region was named in 1879 by government surveyor Alexander Forrest after Secretary of State for the Colonies John Wodehouse, 1st Earl of Kimberley. History The Kimberley was one of the earliest settled parts of Australia, with the first humans landing about 65,000 years ago. They created a complex culture that developed over thousands of years. Yam (''Dioscorea hastifolia'') agriculture was developed, and rock art suggests that this was where some of the earliest boomerangs were invented. The worship of Wandjina deities was most common in this region, and a complex theology dealing with the transmigration of souls was part of the local people's religious philosophy. In 1837, with expedition s ...
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Wattleseed
Wattleseeds are the edible seeds from any of 120 species of Australian ''Acacia'' that were traditionally used as food by Aboriginal Australians, and eaten either green (and cooked) or dried (and milled to a flour) to make a type of bush bread. '' Acacia murrayana'' and '' A. victoriae'' have been studied as candidates for commercial production. Acacia seed flour has recently gained popularity in Australia due to its high nutritional content, hardiness, and low toxicity. Due to its low glycemic index, it is suitable for incorporation into diabetic foods. It is used due to its chocolate, coffee, hazelnut flavour profile. It is added to ice cream, granola, chocolate, bread, and used by chefs to enhance sauces and dairy desserts. History Wattleseeds were a relatively recent addition to Aboriginal Australian diets with specialized seed grinders first dated to 1000 years ago. Many species require pre-treatment of seeds through parching at high temperatures, soaking, or cracking us ...
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Millet
Millets () are a highly varied group of small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops or grains for fodder and human food. Most species generally referred to as millets belong to the tribe Paniceae, but some millets also belong to various other taxa. Millets are important crops in the semiarid tropics of Asia and Africa (especially in India, Mali, Nigeria, and Niger), with 97% of millet production in developing countries. This crop is favored due to its productivity and short growing season under dry, high-temperature conditions. Millets are indigenous to many parts of the world. The most widely grown millets are sorghum and pearl millets, which are important crops in India and parts of Africa. Finger millet, proso millet, and foxtail millet are also important crop species. Millets may have been consumed by humans for about 7,000 years and potentially had "a pivotal role in the rise of multi-crop agriculture and settled farming societies." Descript ...
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