Australian Wild Rice
(Potamophila parviflora)

One of the most surprising discoveries I ever made was that Australian Wild Rice - although localized to just a few river systems in northern NSW - was a genuine member of the rice tribe of grasses and was even genetically related to North American Rices (Zizania spp.).

Its localized range and specialized environmental niche puts this species at risk due to habitat loss, but so far it seems to be OK.

In general, the plant is considered to be a semi-aquatic, but this does not tell the whole story. On a recent trip to northern NSW I collected some seed from the Richmond River. I found it growing up to 5m above the water level, but the tallest and most vigorous plants were close to the water. They appear to do best in soil that is continually damp and so prone to flooding from time to time, but not actually in the water.

Australian Wild Rice is also a large species growing to about 2m tall and capable of forming clumps about 1m across. They also seem to prefer little competition from other grasses and the best plants I found were in full sun.

Harvesting will be easy, as the spikelets (containing the seed) fall at a touch. However, cleaning the grain is more difficult. As I am just sowing my first batch of seed however, there should be some time to work this out.

Getting some useful information to help work things out along the way is always critical for this kind of project. The following references are the ones I have found so far:

Wild Food in Australia (Oe)

Wild Rice and the Ojibway People

Unfortunately, if you are interested in growing this wild food plant, seed is not yet commercially available but if you would like to try it, please contact me and I will try to help you out once I have plants growing and producing seed.

I will also be putting updates about this project in my newsletter "The Food Gardener", which you can subscribe to for free (simply complete the form below).