Homoptera/Hemiptera, Family Psyllidae

Lerps are tiny shields made by sap-sucking bugs. Looking like anything but food, lerps disfigure the leaves of their host plant. A variety of lerps can be found on eucalypt foliage, especially in our cities, where trees are stressed. Eucalypt lerps are white and waxy, but in desert areas a shiny red lerp feeds on mulga stems and was important to inland tribes. Some lerps contain up to ninety per cent starch.

First Australians liked to suck the shields from the leaves. In 1957, anthropologist Norman B. Tindale met a family of Aborigines who had been living for a week almost solely on this food. Their lips were sore and bleeding from running the rough mulga twigs through their mouths.

The white scale has a sugary eucalyptus taste and can be dissolved in water and drunk.

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Original pen and ink drawing printed onto 310gsm Canson Aquarelle Rag using archival inks and is signed by the artist, Phoebe Duff.

All Ancient Nectar prints are limited editions of 25 and are numbered in the bottom left corner.

*Please allow 2-3 weeks delivery time for limited edition items, as they are printed to order.