The potential of tagasaste as a Spanish fodder was identified by Dr Perez, a medical practitioner, based on La Palma island in the Canary Islands in the 1870s, and Spanish cattle farmers. He wrote to the Spanish authorities promoting tagasaste as a fodder shrub but could not get them interested. He then sent seed to Kew Gardens in England. Kew Gardens tested tagasaste and then sent seed to all its colonies around the world. In Australia, tagasaste's potential was promoted by a number of individuals over the next century (e.g. Dr Schomburge in South Australia and Dr Laurie Snook in Western Australia) but was not adopted on a large scale until the 1980s in Western Australia.