TimT
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This is a partial list of herbs, plants, etc, growing in my area - Melbourne - that can be used in brewing. I want to keep updating it as I get more information. It's for the benefit of any brewers who are interested in using wild plants to spice up their brews. 
Please feel free to supplement this list, or add lists of brew plants growing in your own area.
Hops - starting with the obvious. I know of a few gardens around in Reservoir and Bundoora with hops in them - greetings, fellow brewers! - aside from our own. CERES environmental park in Brunswick has a wild hops vine towards the back of the property, growing along the fence that runs along the path which goes down to Merri Creek. I'm not sure if anyone is responsible for these hops - it's possible the CERES staff would be quite happy for others to harvest them.
Wormwood - this used to be used as a bittering substitute for hops. (Since my wife first pointed the plant out to me I've noticed it in gardens everywhere - though apparently it tends to poison the soil it grows in, making it inhospitable for other plants. There's plenty of wormwood growing outside the disused village market just next to the entrance to Epping Plaza on High Street in Epping.
Pink peppercorn - I wouldn't have guessed it but according to the book The Drunken Botanist the peppercorns from this tree were an old flavouring in beer. There's a poisonous version, but it is easily distinguishable from the non-poisonous version - the leaves are much larger, and it is pretty uncommon in Aus. There are peppercorns trees near plenty of train stations, including Reservoir Station, and Lalor Station. Some are growing along High Street in Northcote, on the hillside (there are some of the poisonous variety in amongst these ones, so be careful), and along Alexandra Parade in the park just next to the Dan O'Connell Hotel on Canning Street in Carlton. Never really a problem with availability - they seem to be there all year. (They've also started selling ridiculously small amounts of these ridiculously prolific peppercorns for ridiculously marked up prices in some shops - avoid!)
Crab apple - Another classic - crab apples are used to add flavour, especially tannins, to scrumpy and other types of cider. They are also high in pectin, good for jam setting (and, I think, clarifying wine?) Plenty of crab apples growing in gardens around Lalor, and two outside the Lalor Shops on HIgh Street, Lalor. (We used these this year in our cider, as well as some from a friendly neighbour).
Rose - Traditionally wild rose (brier) was used in wines and foods but any reasonably aromatic rose should work too. (You can also use the leaves and branches to add tannins to a wine and the rose hips in wines and jams). Ubiquituous in just about any garden you can think of right across the city, including our own (is there anyone who DOESN'T know what a rose looks like?) there are also wild roses here and there: a scraggly, disreputable-looking bush growing out of a wire fence round some kind of a store on HIgh Street in Epping (just next door to the Macedonian church), and on the dirt part of Child's Road that begins after the McDonald's, again growing out of a wire fence.
Yarrow - Another one that I previously didn't know about but now see everywhere. It's pretty common in gardens, has a ferny-brackeny sort of appearance, and blooms with orange, purple, and yellow flowers in late spring and summer. (I think you can use the flowers and branches in brews, and was quite commonly used in medieval brews. Apparently when you put yarrow in beer it tends to have a psychoactive effect - it wakes you up, unlike hops, which are a sedative and send you to sleep.) I can't think of any wild yarrow but there must be plenty - it grows prolifically. There's some in our garden and I know at least one friend in Reservoir who has it in theirs too.
Wild lettuce - I learned about this one from Stephen Harrod Buhner's book Sacred Healing and Herbal Beers, and re-read about it in The Weed Forager's Handbook. It's a weed that grows abso-bloody-lutely everywhere, out of footpaths, you name it. Not sure how to describe it, but it grows long, scraggly stalks ending in yellow flowers, and when you break the stalks open you get a milky-white sap called 'lactucarium' that will come out and quickly dry in the air. You scrape this sap off and collect it for use for flavouring in beers! (Doctors used to use it too, apparently) It's growing in our front garden, our back garden, on the back oval, in the park opposite the McDonald's on Child's Road in Epping, and everywhere else.
Will edit this post later - we're leaving on Christmas break soon. Meantime, feel free to add to the list!
Please feel free to supplement this list, or add lists of brew plants growing in your own area.Hops - starting with the obvious. I know of a few gardens around in Reservoir and Bundoora with hops in them - greetings, fellow brewers! - aside from our own. CERES environmental park in Brunswick has a wild hops vine towards the back of the property, growing along the fence that runs along the path which goes down to Merri Creek. I'm not sure if anyone is responsible for these hops - it's possible the CERES staff would be quite happy for others to harvest them.
Wormwood - this used to be used as a bittering substitute for hops. (Since my wife first pointed the plant out to me I've noticed it in gardens everywhere - though apparently it tends to poison the soil it grows in, making it inhospitable for other plants. There's plenty of wormwood growing outside the disused village market just next to the entrance to Epping Plaza on High Street in Epping.
Pink peppercorn - I wouldn't have guessed it but according to the book The Drunken Botanist the peppercorns from this tree were an old flavouring in beer. There's a poisonous version, but it is easily distinguishable from the non-poisonous version - the leaves are much larger, and it is pretty uncommon in Aus. There are peppercorns trees near plenty of train stations, including Reservoir Station, and Lalor Station. Some are growing along High Street in Northcote, on the hillside (there are some of the poisonous variety in amongst these ones, so be careful), and along Alexandra Parade in the park just next to the Dan O'Connell Hotel on Canning Street in Carlton. Never really a problem with availability - they seem to be there all year. (They've also started selling ridiculously small amounts of these ridiculously prolific peppercorns for ridiculously marked up prices in some shops - avoid!)
Crab apple - Another classic - crab apples are used to add flavour, especially tannins, to scrumpy and other types of cider. They are also high in pectin, good for jam setting (and, I think, clarifying wine?) Plenty of crab apples growing in gardens around Lalor, and two outside the Lalor Shops on HIgh Street, Lalor. (We used these this year in our cider, as well as some from a friendly neighbour).
Rose - Traditionally wild rose (brier) was used in wines and foods but any reasonably aromatic rose should work too. (You can also use the leaves and branches to add tannins to a wine and the rose hips in wines and jams). Ubiquituous in just about any garden you can think of right across the city, including our own (is there anyone who DOESN'T know what a rose looks like?) there are also wild roses here and there: a scraggly, disreputable-looking bush growing out of a wire fence round some kind of a store on HIgh Street in Epping (just next door to the Macedonian church), and on the dirt part of Child's Road that begins after the McDonald's, again growing out of a wire fence.
Yarrow - Another one that I previously didn't know about but now see everywhere. It's pretty common in gardens, has a ferny-brackeny sort of appearance, and blooms with orange, purple, and yellow flowers in late spring and summer. (I think you can use the flowers and branches in brews, and was quite commonly used in medieval brews. Apparently when you put yarrow in beer it tends to have a psychoactive effect - it wakes you up, unlike hops, which are a sedative and send you to sleep.) I can't think of any wild yarrow but there must be plenty - it grows prolifically. There's some in our garden and I know at least one friend in Reservoir who has it in theirs too.
Wild lettuce - I learned about this one from Stephen Harrod Buhner's book Sacred Healing and Herbal Beers, and re-read about it in The Weed Forager's Handbook. It's a weed that grows abso-bloody-lutely everywhere, out of footpaths, you name it. Not sure how to describe it, but it grows long, scraggly stalks ending in yellow flowers, and when you break the stalks open you get a milky-white sap called 'lactucarium' that will come out and quickly dry in the air. You scrape this sap off and collect it for use for flavouring in beers! (Doctors used to use it too, apparently) It's growing in our front garden, our back garden, on the back oval, in the park opposite the McDonald's on Child's Road in Epping, and everywhere else.
Will edit this post later - we're leaving on Christmas break soon. Meantime, feel free to add to the list!
