Gunnera is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants, the only member of the family Gunneraceae. Some species have extremely large leaves. It is native to Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Papuasia, Hawaii, insular Southeast Asia, Africa, and Madagascar. The stalks of a cultivar from South America are edible and usually eaten raw.. It lives symbiotically with Nostoc punctiforme, a species of cyanobacteria (or "blue-green algae"). Apparently the microbe provides fixed nitrogen to the plant, while the plant provides fixed carbon to the microbe.