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Low toxicity🍽️ Edible

🥬 New Zealand Spinach (Warrigal Greens)

Tetragonia tetragonioides · Aizoaceae

🦘 Australia🐚 Coastline
🧠 To remember it“Warrigal greens: grows like ivy, cooks like spinach” — just blanch it quickly before tossing it in the pan.
New Zealand Spinach (Warrigal Greens) — Tetragonia tetragonioides

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Prostrate creeping plant with fleshy stems and thick, triangular, bright green leaves covered on both sides with tiny translucent papillae that look like water droplets. Small, inconspicuous yellow flowers followed by dry horned fruits.

  1. fleshy triangular leaves covered with glittering water-droplet-like papillae
  2. prostrate growth habit with fleshy stems
  3. dry fruits with four small horns after flowering
Sizeprostrate habit, stems 30-50 cm
Floweringsouthern hemisphere spring-summer
Habitatsandy and rocky coastlines of Australia, New Zealand, and East Asia; naturalized as a garden crop along many coastal areas worldwide

⚠️ Not to be confused with

No known dangerous look-alikesaucun

To tell them apart: the fleshy triangular leaves covered with tiny, glittering water-droplet-like papillae are unique to this species among coastal creeping plants

🍽️ Eating it

Partsyoung leaves and shoots
Seasonyear-round in mild climates, best in spring
Tastesimilar to spinach, slightly fleshier and mildly salty

Preparation : cook it like regular spinach; the plant contains oxalates, so blanch the leaves for 1 minute in boiling water then rinse in cold water before cooking (stir-fry, soup, gratin) to reduce oxalic acid

💊 Healing with it

no major documented medicinal use beyond its nutritional value as a leafy green vegetable

Level of evidence : traditional use — Wikipedia - Tetragonia tetragonioides

⚠️ excessive consumption is discouraged for people prone to kidney stones (oxalates); always blanch before eating in large quantities

Sources (1)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.