Operation Wildflower
  • Home
  • Albums
  • Links
    • Botanical Gardens
    • OWF Sites
    • Public Parks, Gardens and Reserves
    • Reference Sites
    • Private Parks, Gardens and Reserves
  • Information
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Articles
    • Plant Records
      • Aloes
      • Bulbs
      • Climbers
      • Cycads
      • Euphorbias
      • Ferns
      • Grasses
      • Herbs
      • Orchids
      • Parasites
      • Shrubs
      • Succulents
      • Trees
    • Sources of Information
    • Disclaimer
    • Subject Index
Home Home » TYPES » Herbs » Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia
Back to Category Overview
Total images in all categories: 11,506
Total number of hits on all images: 6,515,962

Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia

Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia
Start View full size
[Please activate JavaScript in order to see the slideshow]
Previous Previous
Image 298 of 409  
Next Next
Image 300 of 409  
  • Pentanisia angustifolia
  • Pentanisia angustifolia leaves
  • Pentanisia prunelloides
  • Pentanisia prunelloides in Mpumalanga
  • Phygelius aequalis
  • Phygelius aequalis flowers
  • Phygelius capensis near Rhodes in the Eastern Cape
  • Phygelius capensis yellow flowers
  • Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia
  • Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia erect inflorescences
  • Prismatocarpus species
  • Pseudoselago
  • Pseudoselago spuria
  • Pseudoselago spuria buds
  • Pseudoselago spuria flower
  • Pseudoselago spuria hosting the beetles
  • Pseudoselago spuria leaves

Image information

Description

This matted herb, known as goose’s tongue or botanically as Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia, is often ignored as a less pretty plant of the South African south coast.  

It grows near salt water between the Cape Peninsula and Port Elizabeth. The habitat is coastal marshes, estuaries and lagoons, places with sandy or muddy, brackish soil. The variety is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century.

The Khoi tribes of the past did not ignore it though. They knew it well as an edible plant. For Plantago crassifolia has long been a boon to some of the world’s hungry people. Strollers today may see spreading clumps of goose’s tongue at the water’s edge of the Bot River Estuary, or at Rooisand between Kleinmond and Hermanus; feeling no inclination to taste some leaves. Right here, long ago, indigenous beachcombers may well have been harvesting leaves looking like these.

Around the Mediterranean and in North Africa, goose’s tongue is still recognised as a survival food. The young leaves are eaten raw or cooked (Niebuhr, 1970; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; www.pfaf.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).

Hits
736
Photographer
Ivan Latti
Author
Ivan Latti
 
Back to Category Overview
Powered by JoomGallery