This is used more or less at all seasons of the year, but is best after the floods have retired and the tops have become decayed and been burnt off.

The root is roasted in hot ashes, and chewed, when it affords a nutritious and pleasant farinaceous food.
The belillah is another important bulbous root, which also grows on lands subject to floods.

It is about the size of a walnut, of a hard and oily nature, and is prepared by being roasted and pounded into a thin cake between two stones.

Immense tracts of country are covered with this plant on the flats of the Murray, which in the distance look like the most beautiful and luxuriant meadows.

After the floods have retired I have seen several hundreds of acres, with the stems of the plant six or seven feet high, and growing so closely together as to render it very difficult to penetrate far amongst them.
The thick pulpy leaf of the mesembryanthemum is in general use in all parts of Australia which I have visited, and is eaten as a sort of relish with almost every other kind of food.