Murnong Day 2020

Murnong Day was a very enjoyable and informative experience to be part of.  

On Wednesday, the Year 7’s went down to the Yarra River to plant and learn about the native Australian Murnong. Murnong means, Yam Daisy. The Wurundjeri tribe used the Murnong as one of their main sources of food. They only ate the root of the Murnong though. This is so that the Murnong’s genes are passed on.  

We are planting the Murnong to try and prevent its extinction. There are hardly any Murnong left because of cattle and sheep compacting the soil and eating the entire plant. It’s important to keep this native plant alive because people still use it as a source of food and because we want to be able to think about the Wurundjeri people when we see it.  

I really enjoyed planting the Murnong because it made me feel as though I was making a difference. It made me feel like I was preventing extinction of the Murnong and understanding history and Australian culture. There were many worms hiding in the soil, and they were huge! We also carried buckets of water to the tap and then came back and watered the Murnong that we had just planted. 

The information session taught me so much about the history of the Murnong. For example; when women collected the Murnong, they always chose the biggest ones. They dug out the entire plant, but only took the roots. Then they put the stem and flower back into the dirt, therefore passing on the genes to another Murnong. So, that means that there would be majority big Murnong left. But when the Europeans came, they brought sheep and the sheep ate the entire plant, not giving anything back. Huge and vast meadows were covered in Murnong, but in four years, they were all gone. In just four years, sheep had eaten everything, leaving nothing behind. I especially loved the way that Ms McIntosh explained this process. She used lolly snakes to explain the stages of the Murnong’s existence. There were smaller snakes to represent the smaller Murnong and larger snakes to represent the larger Murnong. The information session was a great lesson and definitely made me aware of the changes happening around us. 

I was extremely happy to be part of Murnong Day. It was really fun, and we got to make a difference. Thanks to all the awesome work MGC is doing, we may just contribute to preventing the extinction of the Murnong. 

- Ella Duncan, Year 7 Lyons 2