Australian Native Spices: Lemon Myrtle, Mountain Pepper, Wattleseed, Native Mint and Finger Lime

Australia’s native plants give cooks a set of flavors found nowhere else: a leaf that smells more of lemon than lemon does, a berry with a quick, numbing heat, a roasted seed that tastes of coffee and chocolate, a native mint and a lime full of caviar-like beads. This page covers five of the best known, with what the sources say about each.

At a glance

Lemon myrtle

Lemon myrtle is a shrub of the myrtle family.¹ Kew gives its native range simply as Queensland and lists no places where it has been introduced;¹ Katzer describes it as a rare plant, restricted to Queensland and considered endangered, and notes that it has been cultivated since the early 1990s.² A widely repeated claim that it has naturalized across Asia, North America and Europe is not supported by Kew’s records.

Flavor. The leaves are rich in essential oil, typically 4 to 5%, made up almost entirely of citral (90 to 95%), as its two forms neral and geranial.² Katzer quotes the description “more lemon than lemon” and calls the taste very intense, pleasant and warm.² To our taste it sits with lemongrass and lemon verbena among the lemon-scented herbs.

Uses. Katzer lists poultry, seafood and herbed vinegar, and notes that Australian cooks often use lemon myrtle leaves in place of kaffir lime leaves in Southeast Asian recipes.² It is also widely used in tea, desserts and baking; that is common practice rather than a sourced finding. The claim that it will not curdle dairy because it has no acidity is plausible but untested in any source we found. See our lemon myrtle profile.

Two relatives, anise myrtle (Backhousia anisata) and cinnamon myrtle (Backhousia myrtifolia), are also grown, mainly for essential oils.²

Mountain pepper (Tasmanian pepper)

Mountain pepper, also called Tasmanian or native pepper, is a shrub of the temperate southeast; Kew gives its native range as southeastern New South Wales to Tasmania,³ and Katzer says it is found mostly in Tasmania but also grows in Victoria and New South Wales.⁴ Despite the name, Kew places it in the Winteraceae family.³

Flavor. The dried berries look like black peppercorns in size and color. They taste sweet for a second, then deliver an intense pungency that does not last long.⁴ The heat in both berries and leaves comes from polygodial.⁴

Uses. The berries are used whole or crushed, and the powdered leaves can be used too.⁴ Katzer names typically Australian dishes such as kangaroo steaks and emu burgers, and notes that meat is commonly marinated with crushed berries.⁴ Use it where you would use black pepper, but taste first: its heat is sharper and quicker. That is cooking judgment.

Two widely repeated claims could not be traced: that the plant was introduced to Cornwall in the early 20th century and became known there as “Cornish pepper”, and that it was traditionally used to preserve food.

Wattleseed

Wattleseed is the roasted, ground seed of certain Australian acacias. The Royal Society of Victoria names Acacia victoriae, the elegant wattle, as the most common edible species.⁶ The raw seed is extremely hard and must be roasted and ground before eating; today it is dried and roasted much like coffee.⁷ Warndu, an Aboriginal-owned food business, describes the aroma as roasted coffee, sweet spice, raisin and chocolate, and lists ice cream, sorbet, mousse, cheesecake and whipped cream among its uses, as well as bread.⁷ Women traditionally milled the seed between flat grinding stones into flour for cakes or damper cooked on coals.⁶ See our full wattleseed profile and wattleseed substitutes.

Native mint

Native mint, Mentha australis, is a true mint of the genus Mentha, in the mint family, Lamiaceae.⁸ Kew lists it as native to New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, but not Western Australia, and as introduced in New Zealand’s North Island.⁸

The common names “river mint” and a link to the Murray River, and the claim that it was traditionally used with kangaroo and other game, are widely repeated but were not found in any source we reviewed. Use it as you would other strong mints such as spearmint or peppermint. That is cooking judgment. See types of mint.

Finger lime

Finger limes are native to the rainforests of the border ranges of southeastern Queensland and northern New South Wales.¹⁰ Kew gives the same range, southeastern Queensland to northeastern New South Wales.⁹

The fruit. The fruit is finger-shaped, 6 to 12 cm long, and its pulp is made of separate juice vesicles that resemble caviar, often called “lime caviar”.¹⁰¹¹ Fruits come in a wide range of colors, including green, yellow, purple and pink to bright red.¹⁰ Unripe fruit tends to taste bitter.¹⁰

Uses. According to the NSW government’s growers’ guide, the fresh fruit is used mainly as a garnish for seafood, and the pulp is processed into sauces, jams and jellies.¹⁰ Cooks also spoon the tart beads over oysters and into salads and cocktails; that is common practice. The same guide put total Australian production at about 10 tonnes in 2008/09, around half of it exported to Europe and Asia.¹⁰ That figure is now old, and no newer official figure was found.

Related pages

• Lemon myrtle
• Wattleseed and wattleseed substitutes
• Lemongrass and lemon verbena
• Mint
• The master list of herbs and spices