Murnong, or yam daisy, was one of the casualties of colonisation. For thousands of years, the edible tuberous roots of the plant were a staple part of Indigenous people’s diet in south-eastern Australia. John Batman, one of the founders of Melbourne, wrote that the local people had shared the roots with a landing party in the area:

“For many days without rations; but by kindness of the friendly natives, had been well supplied with the roots on which they chiefly subsist, and which my people assured me they found nutritious and agreeable.”

One of Batman’s associates, John Helder Wedge, sketched native women gathering murnong in 1835. He also wrote of the experience of escaped convict William Buckley who had lived among the Wathaurong people for 30 years, relying on the tuber as a key part of his diet.

Women and children harvested the murnong’s roots using digging sticks. Cool fires were often set to reveal the plants’ locations, and the digging sticks helped to aerate the soil. Some tubers were left behind to allow the plants to reproduce. In his book Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe contends that this careful management of the murnong fields amounted to agriculture—a view that has proved controversial. The roots, which some describe as tasting a little like turnip, were roasted in underground ovens, often in rush baskets.

The colonists’ introduction of sheep and cattle led to the destruction of the murnong fields as the animals uprooted the plants and their feet compressed the soil, discouraging growth. Within five years of the arrival of Europeans in the Port Phillip District, the shortage of this staple food was causing great hardship for local people.

Edward Stone Parker, Assistant Protector to the Aborigines (in Central Victoria) reported in 1839 that: 

…all the settlers whom l met with on the journey were of the opinion that the Aborigines were necessarily greatly distressed for food, owing to the destruction of the “murnong”, a tuberous-rooted plant formerly covering the plains of this country, but now entirely cropped off by the sheep and cattle. They expressed their earnest hope that the government would make suitable arrangements for supplying the Natives with food, as it was only under the pressure of hunger that they were disposed to meddle with flocks.

Today, the murnong plant is rarely found other than in small patches of remnant vegetation. Efforts to reintroduce the species have had only limited success. A new recognition of its cultural importance has led to interest in the plant by Landcare advocates and by home gardeners and new research has shown the best ways to cultivate it. However, the extensive fields of murnong observed by early colonists are now a thing of the past.