Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia

Plantago crassifolia var. crassifolia, commonly known as goose’s tongue (among other colloquial names), is a matted, spreading, seaside herb reaching heights from 10 cm to 20 cm, a rhizomatous perennial growing from a thick, scaly rootstock. The name, P. carnosa, is also sometimes used for the plant. 

The species distribution is along the south coast from the Cape Peninsula to Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth).

The habitat is coastal marshes, estuaries and lagoons, places with sandy or muddy, brackish soil. The habitat population of the variety is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century.

This is these days an often ignored plant, regarded as less pretty. Strollers today may see clumps of goose’s tongue at the water’s edge of the Bot River Estuary, at Rooisand between Kleinmond and Hermanus or at Onrus, feeling no inclination to taste a leaf.

The Khoi tribes of the past did not ignore it though. They knew it well as edible, a boon to some of the world’s hungry people. Right here, long ago, indigenous beachcombers have probably been harvesting these leaves regularly (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; Niebuhr, 1970; www.pfaf.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).