Gunnera Manicata - Carwinion

If you like a green roof and have a nice boggy garden, then Gunnera is the plant for you. They have proposterously large leaves (up to 3m round), spiky but edible stalks* and these ludicrous flowers hiding in the under storey.

Many say they taste like rhubarb, to which the plants are related, but we we served it in Chile and they were rather tasteless green stalks of soggy fibre. The Chileans eat it raw, chopped up with a little salt after stripping off the spikey skin.