Renata Buziak

For thousands of years plants have been used for their healing properties. The North Stradbroke Island’s flora includes many edible and medicinal plants that were used by Quandamooka people as food and for treatments of various conditions and illnesses. This exhibition presents a small selection of these plants:

Sesuvium portulacastrum

(sea purslane),

Parsonsia straminea

(common silkpod) and

Abrus precatorius

(rosary pea).

Sesuvium portulacastrum

was used as a treatment for stings from bluebottles and stinging insects. This edible plant is a rich source of nutrients and vitamins, and its essential oils have antifungal, antibacterial and antioxidant properties.

Abrus precatorius’s

seeds are very poisonous, medicinally this plant was used for unwanted pregnancies. In other cultures it was used to treat trachoma (or granular conjunctivitis) and ophthalmia, the roots of this plant were used as a blood diluent as well as a soothing medicine for catarrh and coughs.

Parsonsia straminea

was also used for some medicinal purposes.

All images were created by the experimental biochrome process, which is based on fusion of organic and photographic materials. The works result from the chemical and biological reactions and micro organic activities during organic decomposition; and present traces of natural processes and their significance in the cycle of life.

Go back