MAN: My name is Richard McDowell.
I work in the conservation and land management industry
and I'm a propagator, grower
and collector of our unique Western Australian native flora.
And I'm really into quandongery.
That's right, I propagate and grow quandongs.
Quandongery. It just... I don't know.
It just appeared in my brain one day and that was it.
It pretty much describes what I do.
I mess around with quandongs, basically.
I live in Joondalup with my beautiful wife of nearly 30 years
who's Ballardong Noongar yorga
and my two daughters, Esther and Emily Jane.
So, here in the city of Joondalup, we've created what I call an NBCV,
which is a native biodiversity conservation verge,
and that's essentially what I'm about.
I'm about local native flora, biodiversity,
conserving our unique Western Australian flora.
I've been particularly pleased with the verge that I've built here.
The pleasure comes from seeing the results play out
on a seasonal cycle,
but also when you see the diversity of insects and birds that are here,
the quantity of them is phenomenal.
The birds find this place a haven.
But the big diversity that you find with doing a verge like this
is in the insect world.
I've come to appreciate the uniqueness
of our Western Australian native flora and the diversity of it.
Local species belong in a local area.
A single quandong tree over time
can develop into a quandong system
and it will actually pop up new trees from the roots
and that's actually what's happened in our verge and garden.
The quandong Santalum acuminatum
is the quintessential Aussie bush tucker species.
It's a large shrub to a small tree
that's found across a wide spread of southern Australia
and it's a hemiparasitic species,
so when its roots go out in the bush,
it'll latch onto the roots of other species
and form what's called a haustori
and will take some of the water and nutrients from them.
So, this is the fruit from the quandong.
We have this rich outer flesh...
..which is high in vitamin C and antioxidants.
It has a very almost sour,
I wouldn't quite say bitter taste,
but a very individual sort of taste.
Yeah, it's very rich in its own way.
It's definitely Australia's very own superfood.
This fruit can be used to make jams, chutneys, jellies,
and it's fantastic for making different types of pies,
particularly with apples,
but one of the best combinations, actually,
is quandong and mulberry with ice cream and a bit of cream.
Beautiful.
Propagating quandongs from seed
has been an area of much urban myth and innuendo for many years.
You'll hear stories about, "Oh, you need to have an emu
"and you need to chase after emu poo,"
all this kind of thing.
You know, "You need to put the seeds in bleach."
And, essentially, once you get the flesh off,
you need to crack that outer shell
so that oxygen and air can get to the kernel,
and I've also found that
the seasonal timing of doing that is important as well,
We get mass germination of quandongs in the middle of the year,
so May, June, July.
I grew up in the countryside of Northern Ireland
and probably one of my first memories of the natural world, if you like,
was my grandfather taking me for a walk when he used to walk the dog
and he showed me a little pea in the Irish countryside
and, of course, I was only about five or six at the time,
and seeing that you could
pick a little pea from the Irish countryside and eat it
and that memory has stayed with me ever since.
I spent my childhood running around the fields and the lanes
of the town Ballyclare, where I grew up,
so it kind of was inevitable that when I came back to Australia,
I was going to be in the bush and messing around with nature.
I think my interest in the West Australian natives
developed gradually over time.
Certainly Lola was the one that got me interested in the quandongs.
Shortly after we were married,
we would quite often be looking for them in the Wheatbelt
because they have such a connection to her family and her culture.
When Esther and her sister, Emily Jane, were younger,
we used to go four-wheel driving a lot
and we would go to various locations on Lola's country.
A lot of granite rock outcrops,
a lot of nature reserves out the back of Merriden,
Doodlakine, Kellerberrin, out that way.
Esther has taken very strongly to her mum's culture,
particularly in terms of the language,
but also with the flora.
She's picked up on a lot of the native flora
and now uses a lot of that in her artwork.
ESTHER: A lot of the work that I've made in the last couple of years
has been about the importance of place
and of endemic species within our natural areas,
so, I mean, my mum's country and my country, Ballardong country,
is Central Wheatbelt,
so a lot of the work that I've made
has been about being homesick on your own country, yeah.
I help myself to the garden sometimes
to do a lot of pressings of flowers and things,
but also for dyeing.
Scaevola spinescens, we utilise quite a lot.
A lot of my family uses it a lot.
Dad grows it. That one, we use in a tea.
The bush medicine's definitely something
Mum's very passionate about.
I think both my parents are.
When you've got a whole bunch,
just bring it over and throw it into the pot.
We can't necessarily go out to Ballardong country all the time
and collect Scaevola spinescens,
so now, with it being grafted on a local Scaevola,
makes it a heck of a lot easier for us to have access to,
and the elders at the elders group that I work with,
they use it all the time.
It's, yeah, a pretty important plant.
The verge and the garden and the propagation of the flora
is more of a journey.
There's never an end result with it.
You never stop learning and it just keeps going and keeps going.