Desarrollo del Objetivo 5

A number of desert tomatoes are suitable for long-term storage, which gives them added significance as a resource. The most important are Solanum

chippendalei and S. centrale – the latter being easier to harvest as it has a long-lasting fruit that can dry on the tree and remain edible some months later. The fruit can be ground into a food paste or moulded into round balls with exceptionally lengthy keeping qualities (Peterson 1979).

In comparison to the conventional tomato, Solanum chippendalei (samples with seeds removed) showed a higher protein and carbohydrate content (mg/100 g): 1.2–2.6 mg and 15–27 mg respectively (tomato 1 mg and 4.1 mg). Significantly higher levels of some minerals (mg/100 g) were present: sodium 18–36 mg (tomato 4 mg), potassium 419–795 mg (tomato 252 mg), calcium 67–98 mg (tomato 252 mg) – as well as vitamin C 12–59 mg (tomato 22 mg).

Green specimens had a lower vitamin C content (19 mg), while the amount in the ripe fruit could be substantial (110–113 mg) – suggesting that they made an important contribution to the diet, particularly when eaten in quantity (Peterson 1979).

Importantly, Solanum chippendalei is requires preparation before it can be stored for future use – as DW Carnegie recorded during his travels in the Western Desert in 1896: ‘several wooden sticks on which were skewered dried fruits, not unlike gooseberries; these were hidden in a bush, and are remarkable, for they not only show that the native have some forethought, but that they trade in edible foods as well as in weapons and ornaments’.¹

A similar observation was made in 1956 by anthropologist Donald Thomson, who provided a great deal more detail concerning an Aboriginal camp near Lake Mackay:

On top of some of the brushwood shelters … reserves of prepared vegetable foods had been left. Some of this had been desiccated and was carefully stored. One of these foods was brown in colour, with the appearance and texture of a mass of pulverized preserved figs and contained numerous conspicuous pale yellow seeds, again suggesting a kind of thick fig paste. It had a half-Solanum chippendalei. (Image courtesy: Adelaide

herbarium, source: G Leach, NT Parks & Wildlife)

Solanum chippendalei. (Image courtesy: CP Campbell, West Australian Herbarium)

1 The conclusion that trade was undertaken in these food products is debatable, but they were certainly used by many tribes and stored for later use (Peterson 1979).

sweet, half-tart or acid flavour, but it proved palatable and satisfying, as it was evidently obtained in large quantities even in this drought year, it was probably an important staple food. In the absence of the natives, I was not able to identify the fruit from which this food was derived, but concluded that it was one of the several species of Solanaceae that were seen in flower at this season – some of which, however, were highly poisonous. A quantity of dehydrated or desiccated material was also seen at this same camp, neatly impaled on slender twigs which had been stripped of their bark.

This proved to be the dried pericarp, or ovary wall, of another species of Solanum which, in the absence of the inflorescence, I could not identify specifically.

The discovery of a reserve of prepared and desiccated vegetable food stored in this way was of much interest, particularly in a drought year and in the face of the belief that is widely held that the Australian Aborigines live from hand to mouth and make no attempt to conserve food (Thomson 1962).

fruit resulted in throat soreness. It could also have an inflammatory effect on cuts. Normally, the calyx and seeds were removed and the pulp made into a cake with mallee root bark (pounded and baked) from species of Eucalyptus. Although the fruit was sometimes eaten without baking, it still required processing and was buried to ferment for a few days (Irvine 1957).

The process of ripening usually metabolises the toxic alkaloids into saponins with greatly reduced toxicity. Even so, there are a few native species that retain toxins in the ripe berries. They include Solanum quadriloculatum, S. petrophilum, the Potato Bush or Wild Tomato (S. esuriale), the Devil’s Fig (S.

torvum), the Indian Nightshade or Devil’s Apple (S.

linnaeanum), S. aculeatissimum (now S. capsicoides), Outback Tomato

Chut-ney. (Courtesy: Robins Foods, Australia)

Few Australian species of the Solanaceae have recorded medicinal uses. The roots of the Flannel Bush (Solanum lasiophyllum) were boiled and applied as a poultice to leg swellings (Isaacs 1994). (Courtesy: Dinkum, Wikimedia Commons Project)

The black seeds of Solanum chippendalei (including the adjacent flesh and mucilage) are extraordinarily bitter and are therefore removed before being threaded on sticks and sundried. When rehydrated they are soaked or pounded up in water and make a thick sweet tomato paste (Peterson 1975).

The ‘native tomatoes’ provide numerous examples of the substantial differences that occur in the fruit of closely related species. Their taste and toxicity can vary greatly. The bitter flavour of some subspecies of the Wild Tomato Solanum orbiculatum discouraged its use by some Aboriginal tribes – while it was regularly eaten elsewhere. Solanum coactiliferum contained an undesirable bitter juice that was squeezed out before the fruit could be used to make a ‘tomato paste’

(Latz 1996). In some places this species was simply considered to be inedible. Solanum hystrix could only be used with preparation, otherwise eating the

and the Thargomindah or Sturt’s Nightshade (S.

sturtianum) (Latz 1996; Webb 1948; Everist 1981).

A word of caution is needed regarding the potential for culinary confusion between the species.

For instance, the highly toxic berries of Solanum quadriloculatum can be mistaken for those of the Wild Gooseberry (S. ellipticum) (Latz 1996). The latter is a species of some importance that ‘is said to furnish small edible green tomatoes all the year around and is a widely distributed species ... numerous enough to furnish food on most occasions and situations’

(Cleland & Tindale 1954). However, few other ‘green tomatoes’ were edible.

While the bitter characteristic of the unripe fruits of the native Kangaroo Apples (Solanum aviculare, S. simile, S. lanciniatum and S. vescum fall into this category) is usually an effective deterrent to experimentation, incidents of poisoning have occurred. Even when ripe these fruits may leave a residual burning sensation in the mouth (Peterson 1979). The following comment from Baron von Mueller highlights their problematic potential: ‘The Gippsland tribes collect the fruit of S. vescum eagerly

… It has much the appearance of S. aviculare (S.

laciniatum Ait.), the Kangaroo Apple, to which species it is, indeed, in habit so closely allied, that superficial observers seeing these plants growing promiscuously will hardly become aware of their distinction’. The green fruit of Solanum aviculare is particularly toxic, thus distinguishing the two species was essential.

Joseph Maiden provided additional details:

As it is obviously very important that two plants, one of which yields an edible and the other a poisonous fruit, should be clearly distinguished, I add the following notes:– S. vescum differs from S. aviculare in green but not in dark purplish twigs; in sessile, decurrent, somewhat scabrous, and less shining leaves, while those of S. aviculare are distinctly petiolate, and, consequently, not decurrent along the twigs; in the more tender corollas, which are very slightly, but not to the middle, five-cleft, and hardly ever outside whitish; in thinner styles and filaments, the latter not shorter than the anthers; in more acute teeth of the calyx; in almost spherical transparently green berries, with large seeds. The berries of S. aviculare are at all times exactly egg-shaped, of an orange colour, and with seeds but half as large as S. vescum (Maiden 1900).

An idea of the seriousness of incidents of accidental

poisoning can be illustrated by a case recorded in the New South Wales Medical Gazette of 1872. The culprit was identified as Solanum armatum (now S. prinophyllum). The account, which is graphic in its detail, was recorded by medical practitioner Dr JC Cox. On her arrival home a little girl, Margaret, began acting very strangely:

On attempting to reach the room door, all the while staring on the ground vacantly, she again several times turned round and round. The father then began to be suspicious that something was wrong and took her and laid her by her sister, who was also drowsy, on the bed; he though the sun had hurt her. On laying her on the bed she gave a loud screech and threw her arms wildly about;

and after lying with her eyes wide open, fixed, and stony, satisfied that she was seriously unwell, the father took her in his arms, where she alternately screeched, hugged him, and stared vacantly. At this stage of the case I was sent for, and The Green Kangaroo Apple or Gunyang, Solanum vescum, is a widespread understorey shrub that is found along the eastern Australian coastline, ranging from south-eastern Queensland, to New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.

It is one of the species that benefits from fire, regenerating from seed after heat exposure. Joseph Maiden (1900) wrote:

‘Its large fruit resembles that of the potato. The fruit when perfectly ripe, which is indicated by the outer skin bursting, may be eaten in its natural state, or boiled and baked. It has a mealy subacid taste, and may be eaten in any quantity with impunity; but until the skin bursts, although the fruit may otherwise appear ripe, it has an acrid taste, and causes an unpleasant burning sensation in the throat (Gunn).’ (Image courtesy: Ken Harris)

on arrival – about 7 o’clock – found the child lying insensible on the bed, with the eyes fixed and the pupils dilated. The surface of the body was cold and wet with perspiration; she became violently convulsed after she had vomited freely; the epigastric region was tender to the touch, the mouth parched, and the bowels severely purged.

Her recovery was complicated. Over the next 24 hours she was in great distress and suffered greatly: ‘During the evening she continued in the same insensible state, being violently convulsed every ten or twelve minutes, and passing motions involuntarily. The next morning she seemed weaker, and I was afraid sinking, still insensible and passing blood with her water, and involuntary motions; great thirst; great tenderness over the abdomen.’ It took a couple of days before there was any improvement, during which the episodes of purging, convulsions and unconsciousness continued. It was five days before she began to recover some strength – and ten days before she could sit up in bed. The issue of plant poisoning had triggered some concern. Dr Cox voiced some concern regarding the lack of familiarity many medical practitioners had on the subject of poisonous plants: ‘So little seems to be known of the action of the various plants native of this colony that I have thought the brief history I have given you would be interesting, and draw from members of the profession long resident in the colony some valuable and instructive remarks to others and myself.’