Green vegetables
Which of these three indigenous green vegetables have you eaten?

 

 

 

 

 

Green vegetables: Dune Spinach / Duinespinasie (Tetragonia decumbens)
  • This spreading shrub grows in dunes near the sea.
  • It has dark green succulent leaves and small yellow flowers.
  • Harvest the young leafy stems in winter and wash them very well to get rid of the sand. Boil them like spinach and eat with butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green vegetables: Wild Cabbage/Strandkool (Trachyandra divaricata)
  • This onion-like plant grows near the coast.
  • It has long fleshy leaves and clusters of white flowers on a thick stem.
  • Harvest the flower heads while they are still closed (buds) and cook them in a stew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green vegetables: Cape Pondweed / Waterblommetjie (Aponogeton distachyos)
  • This small water lily grows in dams and wetlands in Winter and early Spring.
  • It has floating oval leaves and clusters of white flowers with large leaf-like bracts.
  • Harvest the flower heads when they are newly opened. They are an essential ingredient in a famous Cape dish called Waterblommetjie Bredie .
  • The Khoe also ate the starchy rhizomes of this plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click the buttons to find out more about indigenous food plants:
Indigenous fruits Indigenous vegetables
Berries (Tick berry, Frutang, Tortoise berry) Bulrush (Typha capensis)
Kukumakranka (Gethyllis afra) Uintjies (Sedges, Klipuintjies, Wituinties)
Sour fig (Carpobrotus edulis) Green vegetables (Dune spinach, wild cabbage, Waterblommetjies)