Christmas Hills

Central Coast Spring Flowers

2009-08-23T18:27:00.018+10:00

We on the east coast of Australia are willing to fly right over the other side of the country to ooh and aah over the West Australian wild flowers during their spring season. I did this myself a couple of years ago and, of course, they were worth the visit. But this year on the Central Coast of New South Wales we are having a stupendous wild flower season of our own. If you head north from Sydney and take the old Pacific Highway instead of the freeway you will see pink, dark pink, yellow and white in great profusion. It really is a stunning year for flowers.

Along the F4 freeway the various Acacias have been blooming for a month or more now now, ranging from pale lemon right through to dark yellow. All of them stunning and all of them attractive to native birds and butterflies.
If your colour is pink – as mine is, you can’t go past Eriostemon australasius. There is an absolute profusion of pink flowers on this shrub which grows to about 1 ½ metres, and this year all of that 1 1/2 metres is covered in flowers. The buds are pale pink as well and look like tiny wrapped up parcels. This shrub can easily be seen from your car as your head north from about Hornsby. Stop the car and have a look.

The darker pink which grows in the same conditions, and sets off the pale pink so nicely, is Boronia. There are almost 20 varieties of Boronia in the Sydney district and almost all of them have pink flowers. The pink is a particularly attractive colour, several shades darker than the Eriostemon, and stunning where the two are growing in close proximity, as they often are. The Boronia I noticed in the last few weeks is the Sydney Boronia, Boronia ledifolia. The name is misleading as it is widespread in sandstone coast communities right the way down to Victoria. The flowers only have four petals whereas the Eriostemons have 5. Some have attractive dark pink buds, quite a contrast with the paler pink flowers.

All that pink looks just gorgeous next to the pale lemon blooms of Acacia ulicifolia. All the shrubs I saw were a mass of pale lemon.

Also flowering was Acacia oxycedrus, again pale lemon and a profusion of bloom, this time with long rods instead of fluffy little balls.

Along side the lemons and pinks was the stronger yellow of little Dillwynia sericea. A tiny little pea flower, yellow with a red throat. Very pretty indeed.

In the same Fabaceae family was this little gem. A small plant, less than ½ metre with interesting long shoots tipped with tiny yellow pea flowers. Very attractive and mixing well with all the pinks.

For even more yellow see Gompholobium latifolum. This flower is quite large, at least four times the time of the previous little pea flower, and such a lovely clear yellow

If you prefer your spider flowers in red then look at Grevillea diffusa ssp filipendula ore even Grevillea sericea ssp sericea if pink remains your colour of choice.

Lower down underneath the more showy pinks and yellows was this funny little plant, commonly called Rusty Petals. I’m unsure if it is Lasiopetalum parviflorum or L. joyceae.

The tiny little sun orchids were out as well. Pale lavender, and just perfect. Thelmitra ixioides
Thelmitra nuda and
Thelmitra pauciflora.

Thelmitra ixioides

Thelmitra pauciflora

Thelmitra nuda

All the pink, yellow and blue needs to be leavened with white, and Hakea sericea did that job just fine. The plants are covered in flowers and soon will be covered in the equally attractive large seed pods.

Whilst Hakea sericea has very tiny white flowers there are others in the family with flowers as big as your fist. To see truly beautiful specimens you have to leave the highway and take yourself off on a coastal walk. If you are lucky you will see Hakea bakeriana which has beautiful large pink flowers and equally gigantic seed pods .

Sydney wild flowers – worth a walk.

Astrotricha latifolia (Broad leafed Star hair)

2009-06-23T14:23:00.018+10:00

The name Astrotricha comes from Astro meaning star and tricha meaning hair - from the dense woolly star-shaped hairs covering the stems and underside of the leaves of this plant.

You can clearly see the dense mass of white hairs covering the leaf stalks, stems and branches of the shrub. The new leaf shoots and tiny new leaves are also covered in hairs.

Notice the long leaf stalks, (often as long as the leaf is wide). The length of the stalks is one of the major differences between A. latifolia and its close relative A. floccosa (Woolly Star-hair). This is a useful aid in identification when the shrubs are not in flower as there are many similarities between the shrubs.

Astrotricha latifolia is a mid to large shrub, 1 to 3 metres high, with lax spreading branches. Leaves are about 15 cm long and 2 – 8 cm wide, broadly oval to lanceolate in shape with a slightly drawn out tip, dark green above, sometimes glossy, and woolly beneath with a leaf stalk roughly 4 - 8 cm long. The leaves are held horizontally radiating around the woolly (floccose) stems. The leaves are heavily veined with an obvious indented mid vein and clearly defined lateral veins.

Flowers are typical of the Araliacae, individually tiny but clustered in branched umbels at the ends of stems.

Although each individual flower is small when grouped in large umbels on the ends of the branches they are very noticeable.

Each tiny flower consists of five strongly reflexed petals with 5 stamens attached to a disc which surmounts the ovary. They are yellowish green in colour.

Even the buds are covered in white hairs

They flower late spring to summer (October to January). Note the longicorn beetle visiting the flowers.

Astrotricha latifolia are an understory shrub of wet schlerophyll forest or rainforest margins along the east coast of Australia from about Bega in the south right up the Queensland coast. They are not fussy about soil types being found on shale, quartzite, sandstone, basalt and clay based soils.

Personal Observations

The leaves of Astrotricha latifolia are always chewed. At any time of the year you will find leaves with holes in them and generally an abundance of visiting insects, particularly spring and summer.

Note turned down leaf sheltering a caterpillar

It is not only the leaves that are popular, the flowers too have their share of visitors. Spiders lurk waiting for flying insects to visit and beetles fly in, from longicorns to little round ladybird like creatures.

Early in the flowering season a little iridescent green beetle visits.

Here a tiny yellow flower spider waits amongst chomped leaves for its dinner to fly in.

A robber fly is doing the same thing and there is another brown beetle top left corner.

I have noticed other plants with many insect visitors but this is one of the few which had sustained visits of many different insects for months on end.

One of my most exciting finds was to photograph a caterpillar on a leaf of Astrotricha latifolia. To my naked eye it looked like a bit of twig on the leaf as it is very tiny indeed, it would be lucky to make 10mm in length. It looked just like a tiny dark skinny elongated blob, not a caterpillar at all, but I had my suspicions.

Only blown up on the screen can you see that it is a caterpillar. I believe it belongs to Imbophorus aptalis
which I also photographed on the same shrub and flying nearby.

And my best photograph for last.

Imbophorus aptalis is very tiny, about 1-2 cm wing tip to wing tip. Photographing it was made easier by the fact that it kept quite still and allowed me to approach very closely. Perhaps it was willing itself invisible.

This little moth is so delicate and beautiful, with its feathery wings and tiny form, that were a little girl again I would think it a fairy and would spend my days searching for its fellows and my nights dreaming of their adventures.

My favourite book for attempting to name the plants on my 10 hectares of rainforest and dry schlerophyll forest is Native Plants of the Sydney District An Identification Guide by Alan Fairley and Philip Moore, published by Kangaroo Press and readily available. It is a great book because almost every plant has a photograph, particularly of the flowers, which is what I always notice first in any plant.

Smilax australis family Smilacaceae

2009-06-08T15:19:00.021+10:00

(commonly called Lawyer Vine, Barbed Wire Vine or Austral Sarsaparilla)
Wikipedia
has an interesting article on Smilax in general. In Australia we have three Australian species of Smilax and five of Ripogonum and on the Central Coast of New South Wales we have two of each species.

If something long, thin and vine-like clutches at your clothes, arms or legs on a bush walk and won’t easily release you, chances are Smilax australis has grabbed your attention. It is a very common, tough, wiry climber that scrambles through dry rain forests and nearby shady gullies in the Australian bush; growing in all states in a wide variety of habitats. It has long tough stems, up to 8m or so, and the whole length of stem is covered in small, very sharp, prickles.

Those sharp thorns, with the aid of paired tendrils growing from the leaf nodes, enables S. australis to thread through bushes and scramble over shrubs and trees, sometimes making impenetrable thickets in the bush.

Thicket in flower

The leaves are simple, alternate, tough and leathery; broader at the base than the tip with a short tapering point, which can sometimes be shallowly notched, particularly when young. They are green on both surfaces with five prominent veins running the length of the leaf, and smaller veins radiating from those. Tiny superficial veins cover the surface of older leaves. They are somewhere between 5 and 10 cm long. The base of the leaves houses a pair of coiled tendrils which also aids in the climbing and clinging process.

New leaves are a lovely soft pink when they first appear, aging to a pretty soft green and maturing to a leathery dark green.

The plants are dioecious and so have male and female flowers on different plants. The plants are not self fertile and before fruit can set both male and female plants must be present. I have observed flowering occurring only in spring, with flowering lasting for just a few weeks, but other references describe it as occurring at any time of the year. The flowers are greenish white to cream, individually quite small and borne in umbels about 5 cm across, downward hanging on fine stalks. Each flower is broadly tubular with 6 spreading pointed reflexed lobes and in male flowers 6 long protruding stamens. Perfume is not noticeable to the human nose.

Staminate (male) flowers

Staminate (male) flowers

Female flowers lack the six protruding stamens but instead have an ovary awaiting fertilization before fruit can develop.

Pistillate (female) flowers

Pistillate (female) flowers

If the female flowers are fertilized a cluster of round green berries 5-8 mm across develops,

These ripen black and contain 1 or 2 seeds which are eaten by native birds, such as Satin bower bird and the Green cat bird, and then excreted and spread around the bush to grow new plants.

Butterflies are attracted to the flowers.

There is a very similar plant called Smilax glyciphylla which is not as robust, has narrower leaves, only three longitudinal veins and no prickles. Sometimes they occur in the same area, even growing together. The whole plant is much smaller; smaller leaves, smaller flowers and it is said to have sweet tasting berries and leaves which can be eaten when young and tender.

Autumn colours

2009-05-24T17:30:00.023+10:00

Here it is May and autumn for us Australians. My garden is looking stupendous. We have had quite a lot of rain and after years and years of drought all the trees have put out massive amounts of growth, and my colourful autumn trees have rewarded me with masses of oranges and yellows. I am pleased with all my compositions.

There are masses of flowers too, not just the firey autumn trees.

My last entry was the 3rd January. I fell and broke my wrist on the 5th January so have been unable to do much gardening - well none for six weeks - and then slowly. The garden is huge but much of it can take care of itself to a large extent.

I'll say no more just show off the photographs.

Passiflora herbertiana syn Passiflora verruculosa, Passiflora distephana, Passiflora biglandulosa

2009-01-03T15:10:00.016+11:00

2008 has been the most fantastic summer for rainforest vines. I have noticed plants growing and flowering which I have never seen before and Passiflora herbertiana is one of those. I was so excited when I first saw its blunt little leaves last year and have waited patiently for it to grow and reveal itself to be a native passionfruit.

Australia is home to only three endemic species of passionfruit compared to tropical South America which has 400 species – and one of ours is Passiflora herbertiana.

Passiflora herbertiana is a rainforest climbing plant which uses curly tendrils growing at the base of leaf stalks to hold itself in place and to make its way up and through rainforest trees into the sunlight.

The leaves are quite unusual in shape when the plant is young; an elongated oval with a middle bump to one side.

The stems, leaf stalks and the under surface of the leaves are finely hairy though you will need a hand lens to clearly see them.

As the plant matures the leaves change shape and become up to 12cm wide, with 3 broad, almost acute lobes. If you see a newly emerging seedling of a Passiflora herbertiana you could be forgiven for believing it to be a different plant altogether.

One distinguishing characteristic of Passiflora herbertiana is the presence of two raised glands at the top of the leaf stalk. The purpose of this gland is not clear though ants have been seen apparently feeding there.

Passiaflora herbertiana prefers the sunlight available at the rainforest edge or in partly cleared areas in preference the shade in the centre of a rainforest.

The plant occurs from north eastern NSW to north eastern Queensland in Australia. It is quite hardy and will grow happily in many different soils, from sand to heavy clay, but it thrives best in very wet springs/summers, so it enjoys lots of moisture. The plant is often not seen during droughts at all, only to reappear when the rain comes. It is not clear whether the root remains underground waiting for the right conditions or whether it re-grows from seeds lying dormant in the soil.

The flowers occur singly in the leaf axils but as all the axils have a bud, the flowering season is quite long, mainly from August to December. The plant can spot flower at other times if conditions suit. The flowers are about 6 cm across and are interesting in shape and colour.

The buds begin green and then become an orange shade.

The flowers emerge from the orange bud a creamy yellow and a day or so later become pale orange before they shrivel away.

The fruit is green with white spots, and about 1/2 the size of the black passionfruit we commonly see for sale in the supermarket which is generally Passiflora edulis (round black fruit). Passiflora herbertiana is tinier but tasty.

The fruit matures over a period of a few months. Those I have been watching are very warty.

That could be because something is piercing the skin to suck out the fluids or something is growing inside and emerging through a hole from the fruit at maturity. I have seen a weevil which I think is Orthorhinus cylindrirostris on the fruit and have photographed larva inside the fruit. My net research however has not shown up any more references to this problem. Every mention of this weevil seems to be referring to the stems of grapevines and the damage their larvae cause there. However as both the weevil and the passionfruit are native to Australia it seems appropriate that they exist together in this way.

So far only one of the fruits has reached maturity without being attacked and I ate that one.

2008-12-12T14:58:00.019+11:00

The Angophora costatas on the Central Coast of New South Wales are looking magnificent at the moment. All red flaky bark and gnarled branches contorted into the strangest shapes. They are such an interesting tree; they blend effortlessly into the background of Eucalypt forest for most of the year and then when it is their time to shine, shine they outstandingly do. At the moment (December) it is the colours of the bark rather than the small white flowers that is drawing attention..

They are sometimes called Sydney Red Gum or the Rusty Gum. The Red Gum rather obviously because of the colour of their bark at certain times of the year and Rusty gum because at other times they exude rusty tears down the sides of their trunks.

Sometimes rather a lot of rusty tears.

Angophoras are no longer in the “gum” or Eucalypt family. They are now more properly in a category of their own – the Angophoras. At the moment the Angophoras are described as having ten species on some sites, but that is rather fluid.

Even though they are no longer in the Eucalypt family they are closely related, and Angophora costata looks very similar to its close relative, Corymbia maculata, the Spotted Gum, particularly when it is shedding bark. Both have smooth deciduous bark which is shed in thin elongated patches right to the ground leaving a dimpled smooth finish that fades gradually to grey.

This tree has flexed its muscles and “popped” right out of its skin.

Angophoras are often grown in native gardens”. They grow easily from seed and are widely available, but they are a very large tree (15 to 25 metres) with the unfortunate habit of dropping limbs willy nilly, so should be considered carefully for that position.

The left over calluses from fallen limbs add to their gnarled appearance.

Where they are suitable they are a wonderful changeable tree, with bark colours varying from cream to orange with white, sweet smelling flowers.

They naturally occur on well drained sandstone soils on the Central Coast of New South Wales where there are still some wonderful mature stands.

They have been planted as city trees too. I have noticed them in Oxford Square Sydney, still very young small trees but nevertheless looking beautiful and flowering well, but I do wonder about their long term prospects given their propensity to drop limbs.

The leaves are pinkish when new weathering to dark green, typically gum shaped 6-16 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. They are carried opposite to each other along the stem.

The flowers are simply gorgeous, always white in Angophoras, and very showy as they are in terminal panicles at the tips of branches. The flowering time is listed as November to January in most reference books, but I have photographed them as early as October and as late as February so it varies considerably. Also varying is the floriferousness. Some years you will have the trees smothered in blossom, others not.

The true clincher to tell you whether you are looking at an Angophora or Eucalypt is in the buds and fruits. The buds are very distinctive with little pointy ribs, which unfold to release the stamens. There is no bud cap as there is in Eucalyptus species.

The flowers simply “unwrap” and emerge.

Compare with the obvious bud cap of Eucalyptus maculata.

And the ribbed fruits are also intriguing. Costata means ribbed and the fruit capsule has very prominent ribs. If you are looking at a smooth urn shaped fruit then your tree is not Angophora costata.

Look out for the gnarled appearance of Angophora costata in your neighbourhood

Sarcopetalum harveyanum

2008-10-19T18:35:00.012+11:00

Sarcopetalum harveyanum (meaning of name: Fleshy petals) is common in or near rainforest and is also often found in moist eucalypt forest, chiefly in coastal areas along the eastern seaboard of Australia from Victoria, through New South Wales, right up into Queensland.

You have to be very lucky to see the tiny flowers of Sarcopetalum harveyanum as they are held on short racemes, 3 to 7cm long, and only last a day or so. The flowers are very, very tiny, with petals about 3 mm long - and they pop straight out from the trunk of the vine, generally on the old wood. The old wood of this vine is usually high in the canopy of the rainforest hence the difficulty in spotting the tiny flowers.

Fruit is a globular berry, 5 to 8mm in diameter, slightly flattened. They are brown to begin with, for all the world like a brown lentil; then as they swell and ripen they turn pinkish and then red. They are quite small, yet bigger than you would expect after catching sight of the tiny flowers.

They are odd in the way they can pop out of the ground or an old stalk where there are no leaves, or anything else to give you a clue as to the name of the vine.

The first time I saw this vine fruiting they looked like bunches of grapes hanging in the forest. It took me months of researching to find out what they were.

The leaves of this woody climber are distinctly heart- shaped and, when young, a lovely apple green.

They can be distinguished from other vines with similar shaped leaves by seeing where the stalk joins the leaf. In Sarcopetalum harveyanum the stalk joins the leaf in the bottom of the V or right at the top of the heart.

You can see it more easily in this photograph.

As well there are 7 clear veins radiating from the stalk.

A similar looking vine and often seen together in the rainforest is Stephania japonica, but there the stalk joins the leaf distinctly away from top edge and the leaves are much more rounded.

Something has eaten pieces out of the leaves in this photograph.

Larvae known to feed on

Harveyanum Sarcopetalum

My favourite book for attempting to name the plants on my 10 hectares of rainforest and dry schlerophyll forest is Native Plants of the Sydney District An Identification Guide by Alan Fairley and Philip Moore, published by Kangaroo Press and readily available. It is a great book because almost every plant has a photograph, particularly of the flowers, which is what I always notice first in any plant.
Also
Rainforest Trees of Mainland South-eastern Australia by AG Floyd,published by Terania Rainforest Publishing Lismore, Australia. Also a great book with a wealth of information but no photographs.

Commersonia fraseri

2008-10-19T16:23:00.014+11:00

Looking almost like last minute spring snow fall dusting the branches (if we had such a thing in temperate Australia) - and flowering right now, September-October, is a native shrub in the Sterculiaceae family, Commersonia fraseri. If we are lucky it may even continue with the odd extra flower until January. I have noticed a long flowering season is likely if we have a wet spring and summer. When that is the case the shrubs often flower again in March. If you are travelling around the coast the shrubs are most noticeable at the moment where a bridge crosses a creek. There you will see a mass of white flowers in the gully alongside.

On the Central Coast Commersonia fraseri grows into a large shrub or small tree, 2 to 3 m tall. It is often one of the first shrubs to regenerate where clearing has taken place, particularly along river banks, in sheltered gullies, or along roadsides where it can get a little more moisture than average. It is also grows from East Gippsland, Victoria right into south eastern Queensland, wherever there is wet schlerophyll forest or creek-side rainforest.

The flowers are white and sweetly scented, reminiscent of honey. They are placed along the top of the horizontal branches in loose clusters, giving a massed bloom effect to the whole shrub.

Each individual flower is only 5-7mm in diameter but they are massed in groups, each 3-5cm across. Each flower has five sepals, triangular in shape, five long, skinny, ribbon-like petals that are generally longer than the sepals and another five staminoides; (each three lobed with one vertical and two horizontal lobes), narrow and ribbon-like, as long as the petals but more erect.

This arrangement gives a fluffy look to the flowers.

The fruit is 15 to 25 mm across and covered with soft bristles 5 to 10mm long. They open into five cells, each with two angular, egg-shaped, dull black seeds.

The new leaf branchlets are slender, fawn and covered in a soft down, becoming hairless with age.

The leaves are alternate, simple and variable in shape. Juvenile leaves are broad, jagged and softly hairy, feeling a little like fine, soft velvet, with a fine point at the tip. They are dull on both sides, dark green above, white hairy beneath. Main lateral veins are clearly visible on both sides of the leaf. There are usually five veins, each ending in a larger tooth on mature leaves.

As they age they are more broadly lance shaped to heart shaped, with irregular teeth, two to three teeth per centimeter, often lobed or with a larger tooth at the end of each major lateral vein.

The leaves on these shrubs are always well eaten. Even when very new it is possible to find holes where something has had dinner. (See underside of new leaf above). Whether that is moth or butterfly larva or something else I have not yet been able to determine. This can give quite a straggly, moth eaten appearance to these shrubs

Commersonia fraseri can be grown from cuttings, but with their strong suckering habit care would need to be taken with placement. They would make a good background plant or could be used for screening purposes or utilized as a cover plant when attempting to establish a rainforest. They are very fast growing and quite hardy, accepting at least half shade and tolerant of frost. The sheer number of flowers and the beautiful perfume certainly makes them deserving of a place, if space can be found.

They evidently support wildlife so perhaps space could be found for that reason alone.

A complete list of butterflies and larva supported by the Sterculiaceae family.

References.

My favourite book for attempting to name the plants on my 10 hectares of rainforest and dry schlerophyll forest is Native Plants of the Sydney District An Identification Guide by Alan Fairley and Philip Moore, published by Kangaroo Press and readily available. It is a great book because almost every plant has a photograph, particularly of the flowers, which is what I always notice first in any plant.
Also
Rainforest Trees of Mainland South-eastern Australia by AG Floyd,published by Terania Rainforest Publishing Lismore, Australia. Also a great book with a wealth of information but no photographs

Eggs and Bacon on the Central Coast.

2008-10-09T12:33:00.017+11:00

Don’t think the gold of the wattles has gone – it hasn’t yet, but flowering alongside and adding to the golden glow are many varieties of plants collectively known as Eggs and Bacon.

Why Eggs and Bacon? I don’t know, maybe because the flowers are yellow and brown? Many plants contribute to the Eggs and Bacon look; the common link is that they are all pea-shaped flowers, in varying shades of yellow and brick red, and belonging to the Fabaceae family. In each local area the Eggs and Bacon look is comprised of different indigenous plants.

On the Central Coast of New South Wales our Eggs and Bacon include; Daviesias, Podolobiums, Pultenaeas and Dillwynnias. Along the middle of the highways and on the edges of the road during September and October there are masses of yellow and brown Eggs and Bacon brightening everyone’s day.

If you visit the bush at this time of year you will surely have been scratched by these plants. The fire trails on the Central Coast are often edged with them, which tells us that they like disturbed soil or that they are one of the first to come back when bush has been cleared; or even that they like a bit more sunshine than they would receive in a close canopied forest. They enjoy their place in the sun while they can, before being replaced by slower, but eventually larger growing shrubs or trees.

In past years I used to ride my horse along the trails, and so I learnt to recognize the plants by the ouch factor, as many Eggs and Bacon score very highly on that score. My horse wasn’t too fond of the plants either, she was a sensitive soul and they are generally quite prickly and can cause nasty scratches if you get too close.

Daviesia ulicifolia is one that comes to mind.

The flowers are quite tiny, but look at the spines! And yes they are as sharp as they look. You do not want to be dragged through these bushes; making you dog come back, for example. Yes, been there too.

Enmasse they are quite beautiful. Very eggs and bacony.

All Daviesia have very unusual triangular seedpods, and as no other pea-flowers on the Central Coast have such distinctive pods these are very useful for identifying the genus.

As they ripen they turn quite a pretty brown and look almost as attractive as the flowers for a few more weeks.

Another Daviesia adding to the Eggs and Bacon look is Daviesia squarrosa. These are undergoing some name division at the moment, so all is not yet clear in the name department.

Daviesia squarrosa is a small shrub with delightful heart shaped leaves -topped with vicious spines. Pretty but don’t touch!

Different shades of flowers exist within the family, but basically still yellow and red.

The leaves and flowers are very tiny, both perhaps 6mm long but when there is a tiny flower in each leaf axil you have a very beautiful massed effect. Again triangular pods.

Continuing the eggs and bacon theme and jump to Podolobium aciculiferum previously known as Oxylobium aciculiferum.
This not only has pointy heart shaped leaves like Daviesia squarrosa but also sharp spines like Daviesia ulicifolia. The best of both. Have a look.

The whole shrub is a pretty fresh green early in the season, and appealingly graceful in form, but beware falling into this plant.

A close relative and more prickles are found in Podolobium ilicifolium, formerly Oxylobium ilicifolium, commonly called Native Holly or Prickly Shaggy Pea - and you can see why when you look at the leaves of this plant.
Very Holly like indeed, and each point is viciously sharp. Note the stick insect in the middle.

This one is a much taller grower than the others and can reach up to 3m of prickly plant. The leaves are 2 to 4 cm long, strongly veined, with 3 or more lobes each ending in a prickly point. The leaves change depending on the habitat, there can be more lobes or less, and the size of the leaf alters too. The only thing that doesn’t change is the prickles.

The flowers are generally yellow with red (or reddish brown) keel. The flowers are much larger than the other flowers I have discussed. The shrub in flower is very handsome indeed.

There is no mis-diagnosing the seedpods on this one, though small they are typically pea shaped.

Group all the plants together and you have a very pretty effect.

Podolobium ilicifolium is available from time to time in native nurseries. It is a great plant to attract little birds to your garden as the spiny leaves gives them some protection. It needs good drainage and some shade. It is often not very long lived though.

And finally one without spines, Pultenea villosa. Looking very pretty on the Central Coast right now (October)

This one forms a graceful weeping shrub, 2 m high by 3 m across so I am told, but I’ve never seen it grow to that size in my neck of the woods. It is many branched and spreading with flowering occurring quite heavily along the whole branch with the weight of the flowers contributing to the weeping appearance.

Fabaceae in general support various Australia butterflies.

CUPANIOPSIS ANACARDIOIDES: known as Tuckeroo

2008-08-28T18:45:00.008+10:00

The Tuckeroo, Cupaniopsis anarcardioides, first came to my attention a number of years ago, gosh 20 or so, when an enthusiastic gardener friend of mine was telling me about a stand of Tuckeroos that had been identified at Tuggerah and horrors, the land on which they stood belonged to one of the power stations and they wanted to bulldoze the lot. I’m not sure what the outcome of that story was but the name Tuckeroo has stayed with me ever since. Confession time - I wasn’t that enamoured of native Australian trees at that time but hankered after luscious exotics.

Now Tuckeroos and I have become good friends. I’ve noticed them growing in Surry Hills, Sydney and proving to be attractive, tough street tree, coping in a tiny patch of dirt in a sea of concrete on a busy road. It was the fruit which first caught my eye. Rather large three sided orange berries, in bunches all over the tips of the branches.

I saw them again on a recent trip to Queensland and realized again how beautiful they are. They are obviously much more at home in the sub tropics and grow into very handsome trees, still the same inconspicuous flowers but such gorgeous orange fruits!

They are being utilized as a tough evergreen tree in all sorts of places in Brisbane I noticed and also alongside the carpark at the Sunshine Coast airport.

I do like it when I meet up with old friends, both human and plants.

The shortish trunk is rather handsome too being pale to dark grey with raised horizontal lines.

The flowers are relatively inconspicuous, OK let’s be honest, if you weren’t looking for them you wouldn’t notice them at all as they are very tiny and a pale, creamy green. They are about 5mm in diameter occurring on axillary branched panicles. The sepals are round, petals small with about 8 to 10 stamens up to 5mm long. The flowers appear in winter; but the ensuing 3 lobed fruits are the true attraction.

They are a large, three-lobed capsule, green to begin with and then turning a bright orange - very showy indeed. They split when mature to reveal black or dark brown seeds nearly covered by a bright red aril. The trees are most beautiful in late winter to early spring when the fruits ripen.

The foliage is dark green, thick and rather leathery. The leaves are alternate pinnate compound, with 2-6 pairs of leaflets and about 7 – 10 cm long. Each leaflet is a rather odd obvate shape with a blunt or notched apex, dark glossy green on top and a lighter green beneath. The veins are distinct on both the top and bottom of the leaves.

Tuckeroos deserve to be grown more readily as a street tree, anything to get rid of all the plane trees really. They are an evergreen, tough hardy tree that can adapt to difficult sites and even pollution laden air. They can grow up to about 8 metres tall with a similar width and have a full rounded crown. While they appreciate full sun they cope quite well with partial sunlight, or even quite a degree of shade. They can cope with many different soil conditions so are quite adaptable. The only thing they dislike is to have their roots remaining in water for any length of time. They are tolerant of coast exposure and salt spray too. They would make a good nurse tree for people attempting to regenerate bush land. They are frost tolerant but probably prefer the warmer northern coastal regions along the east coast of Australia.

When birds turn...........

2008-08-15T23:52:00.011+10:00

Sydney Botanical Gardens are beautiful any time of the year. I try to go as often as I can to watch the gardens change with the seasons. The harbourside location is hard to beat too.

Last week while I was there I couldn't help noticing the figs laden with fruit. One such is Ficus virens. There are a number of different figs in the gardens so this year there is plenty of food for the local birds and fruitbats. Tis a season of plenty at the moment.

Unfortunately the plenty also refers to the number of fruit bats living in the gardens, I have heard as high as 30,000. It is quite a wonderful and unusual experience to place yourself under the bat path and watch them exit each evening at dusk to fly to feed in nearby suburbs. Sadly there numbers are destroying large parts of the garden as they damage emerging shoots or break off branches.

But back to the fig.
This tree can, at most, be just over 200 years old and so is just a baby.

Underneath the fig, if you look carefully, you will see a couple feeding the birds. These are not pigeons or doves or other softy type birds. These are Australian sulphur crested cockatoos, with huge beaks meant for cracking open nuts and ripping holes in tree trunks to extract tasty grubs. There are signs around begging people not to feed the birds, but they are ignored. I would probably ignore them too if I weren't such a Goody Twoshoes.

Ignore at your peril. Here is what happens when you run out of food but the birds haven't run out of hunger.

Superb Lyrebird - Menura novaehollandiae

2008-07-12T16:44:00.010+10:00

We found a huge nest built on the ground back in May - way up in the bush behind our rainforest. See entry for 18th May, 2008.

Much excitement today.

Today we paid the nest our third visit after leaving it alone for a few weeks.

We knew there was a bird in residence and we had guessed it was a Lyrebird. This time we were trying hard to be really quiet in the hope that we would get a close look at her.

A couple of weeks ago we tramped up to visit the nest and surprised her. She in turn surprised us because she let out a blood curdling scream and dashed into the scrub. All that was left behind was an echo in our ears, along with the impression of a streamlined dark bird with a tail as long as her body.

Naturally we didn't want to poke around her home without her permission so I stayed where I was and Frank crept up and peeped in. He saw no eggs, but the nest certainly looked as if it was being made ready for such an event. There was the beginnings of a layer of down from her body to help keep her egg warm.

Today’s excitement was due to us spotting the nest occupant peeking her head out to see what on earth was making the racket in her usually quiet peaceful neighbourhood.

Again she beat a hasty retreat though this time without so much as a peep, again I stayed where I was and Frank peeked in and quickly snapped a couple of photographs. He was pretty sure he had seen an egg and when we looked at the photographs we saw he was right. He had.

We were really, really excited. Lyrebirds are such shy beauties that we haven't seen many in our 20 years of residence. A couple on early morning horse rides, and two feathers once left behind in one of our gardens. We often heard them calling, at least we figured it was Lyrebirds by the different bird calls in quick succession we were treated to on our walks.

Her nest is constructed with largish sticks, bigger than twig size but not branches if that helps. It is quite large, about a metre across, placed carefully on an embankment. There is a lot of leaf litter on the forest floor which she has obviously scratched around in for food.

David Attenborough included a segment on Lyrebirds in one of his Wildlife programs. It shows the wonderful mimicry they are known for.

Further information.

Central Coast Goes for Gold - Acacias in Bloom

2008-07-11T17:29:00.032+10:00

They might not be the gold medals that Australia is hoping to win at the next Olympic games but the gold I see every day is a winner with me. I love the winter when the Acacias cheer me up by flowering prolifically for months along the sides of highways, the Freeway and semi-country roads. I’ve read that an Acacia can be in flower somewhere in Australia on every single day of the year, but here on the Central Coast we have a little hiatus during late autumn early winter. Then the Acacias begin again and flower on and on, passing the baton one to another before the cycle begins again a year or so later.

On my 10 hectares I have four endemic Acacias, (Acacia irrorata ssp irrorata, Acacia maidenii, Acacia prominens and Acacia binervia, plus one introduced Acacia, Acacia podalyriifolia ) all flowering at different times and all looking quite different in leaf and flower.

Acacia irrorata ssp irrorata

Acacia maidenii

Acacia prominens

Acacia binervia

Acacia podalyriifolia
Once they were safely sorted in my mind I widened my search to the end of my road (2.75 km) and came up with another four, (Acacia suavolens, Acacia terminalis, Acacia falcata and Acacia ulicifolia.

.Acacia suavolens Beautifully perfumed

Acacia ulicifolia Pretty but pointy

.Acacia falcata

Acacia terminalis

After that I decided to include my nearest cross-road, which is a rather long rural connection road, and along came more (Acacia longifolia, Acacia filicifolia, Acacia mearnsii, Acacia decurrens, Acacia hakeoides and another shrub somewhat like Acacia longifolia but with very pale flowers).

Acacia decurrens. I think of this one as bilious green wattle because to me the colour is not as attractive as some of the other yellows.

Acacia mearnsii (I think)

Acacia filicifolia

Acacia longifolia rather bedraggled in the rain

Pale version of Acacia longifolia

Acacia hakeoides perhaps the most beautiful of them all.

If I include my general vicinity (Sydney region) then there are an astonishing 60-70 species of Acacias or wattles, all sharing generously their golden colour and special wattle perfume

Corymbia maculata syn. Eucalyptus maculata - Spotted Gum

2008-05-26T16:44:00.018+10:00

Rainbow Lorikeets Trichoglossus haematodus are visiting our area again. Some people are lucky enough to have daily visits from these beautiful birds but we only see them occasionally. They turn up when their favourite gums are flowering.

At the moment it is the turn of the Spotted Gums.

Corymbia maculata produce oodles of nectar, and as rainbow lorikeets enjoy nectar as part of their diet they have been spending long hours partying at the tops of the trees, where most of the flowers are to be found.

Corymbia maculata are very tall trees that flower way, way up high, all over the top of the crown, making their flowers difficult to see from ground level. Even flowers closer to the ground merge in well with the leaves and the sky; particularly when the skies have been cloudy and grey as they have been much of the time this year.

Even the multi-coloured gaudy rainbow lorikeets manage to disappear into the canopy. You can see movement amongst the branches overhead but the birds themselves are difficult to see. They are not difficult to hear though because their distinctive noisy squabbling sounds are unmistakable as they greet each other and discuss the relative merits of this year’s bouquet,

Often the first indication of the flowering of Corymbia maculata; (which incidentally doesn’t occur every year, but every few years - estimates vary, depends who you talk to), is the rich smell of honey. These trees have seriously delicious smelling flowers. Take a look around underneath the canopy and you will see the odd fallen white to cream flower, or a little twiglet containing a couple of flowers and buds. These have been pinched off by over enthusiastic birds or possums.

The bud caps have a little point and are generally clustered in groups of 3 to 7 on small leafless shoots in axils of leaves towards the ends of the branchlets. In typical gum fashion the bud cap is pushed off by the unfurling stamens.

The flowers develop into large woody barrel shaped gum nuts with deeply enclosed valves

Corymbia maculata has bark that sheds right to the ground in small pieces. They don’t make quite the same mess as other similar looking gums because the shed bark can be cardboard thin, unlike Eucalyptus propinqua, which sheds huge slabs of quite thick bark.

Some people think the Spotted Gums are so named because when they are shedding their bark they can have quite a mottled appearance. I believe the name may have been given because of the dimples on the tree trunk. Many look as if a giant has come along and given them little squeezes and pokes, almost as a child might with a piece of play dough and a stick. Some gums are more dimpled than others, and those are generally unmistakable Spotted Gums due to the markings on the trunk.

Highly spotty specimen

However there are specimens with just a few dimples.

Mottled areas with just a few dimples

Spotted Gum is not a good timber to use for sheds or other farm buildings as it is susceptible to lyctid borer attack and only lasts for a few years before needing replacement. This I know from bitter experience.

However it is a useful tree for building projects where it can be properly protected.

Corymbia maculata is well loved by bees and their keepers. It has high yields of nectar with a very high sugar content, particularly in the mornings and evenings. If you have spotted gums flowering in your area you should be able to smell their honey scent very easily, particularly in the evening.

Bees and birds aren’t the only animals appreciating the nectar of the Spotted gums. The evenings and nights bring out the bats who squeak and squabble as they take their share of the nectar and sometimes the grunt of a possum or two as they argue over whose tree it is joins the cacophony.

Once all the mottles fade the spotted gums can look very like a grey gum, except for those very dimpled specimens.

Here we have a spotted gum on the far left and a group of Eucalyptus propinqua on the right. Easy to see which is which now,

but just wait until they all fade to a uniform grey. Not so easy then.

Eucalyptus propinqua (Grey gum) left, Corymbia maculata (Spotted gum) right

The Spotted Gum is often mistaken for one of the grey gums or the lemon scented gums and vice versa. At certain times of the year they are difficult to tell apart. All are tall straight trees with smooth light grey bark for some of the year.

When the lemon scented gums are discarding their bark they can look very like a spotted gum or a grey gum. And when the grey gums and the spotted gums have finished discarding last year’s clothes and have freshly gained their smooth light grey bark they are again very much alike. Some times you have to watch the trees for a few seasons before you can be sure what they are.

Corymbia Citriodora - Lemon Scented Gum growing in the city

At other times you look at them and have no doubt in your mind.

Telling a lemon scented gum is easy, walk underneath, find a leaf, crush it and have a sniff. The strong lemon scent is a dead giveaway.

Unknown nest

2008-05-18T10:18:00.010+10:00

Posted by Frank

Christine and I found this large nest on the ground in one of the less-frequented parts of our property. It's almost a metre across and still in use, judging by the green leaves on the inside.
We've no idea what it could be, or any clues to the animal that uses it.

Guioa semiglauca

2008-03-22T14:45:00.010+11:00

This is a medium sized rainforest tree, round about 18m, but can grow taller in very good conditions, with a spotted smooth grey trunk. It has rather dull, dark green, thick leathery leaves, which are blueish grey underneath, hence the name semi-glauca.

Underside of leaves

The leaves are pinnate-compound with 2 to 6 pairs of leaflets, each 4 to 8cm long, with one single leaflet at the end of the stem. The leaves are quite heavily veined, ovate to elliptical, with a soft blunt tip at the apex in adult trees.

Older Leaves

Guioa semiglauca is still fairly common in protected coastal areas in rainforests along the east coast of Australia, from about Nowra to Mackay in North Queensland.

It took me years to recognize this tree in my patch of rainforest because it blends into the background very well. I find it much easier to figure out what tree is what if I have a flower or something I can use to track it down. With this tree it was just a nondescript rather dull tree for months on end. Now that I know it I can see that it is one of the backbone trees along the creek, which no doubt hold the creek banks together, provide habitat and shelter for bird and beast and also food at the appropriate time of the year.

There is nothing about the tree that makes it stand out - until it flowers in early spring. It doesn’t flower every year but when conditions suit it can be covered in masses of small lightly perfumed flowers.

This is not one of those fly-by-night trees that flaunt their blossom for a week or so. No, this tree begins slowly and builds to a crescendo of flowers as the weeks progress. The flowers are not particularly showy, being a greeny cream and very tiny, but in a good year, there are masses of them borne in dense clusters in the leaf axils. I admit this many are rather difficult to miss, but this year has been a particularly good one for many of the trees and so there was a mass bloom. I’ll be interested to see as the years pass just how often it flowers this prolifically.

In fact if you are not paying attention, even with lots of flowers, you may not notice the flowers at all as they blend in so well with their surroundings, but if you are bee or a butterfly or moth, you know they are there. Not only do they blend in well but they flower high in the canopy of the tree which is surrounded by other thick bush making them rather hard to see.

Before I had put a name to my trees I noticed one beginning to bud on the edge of the creek. I watched the buds develop and finally open and then noticed with great interest that thousands of bees visited and feasted on the nectar.

As successive trees opened their flowers, very high in the rainforest canopy, I could tell just by the drone of the bees, that something special was happening way up high, and then it took a pair of binoculars before I was sure.

Even before the buds of the Guioa semiglauca were fully opened it was attracting dozens, perhaps hundreds, of fluttering brown and orange tiny butterflies, Hypocista metirius in early October. It was a definite meeting point.

Once the flowers finish the tree maintains interest for a little longer with the attractive seed capsules, 8 – 12 mm wide.

These are flattened with 2 -3 wing like lobes which swell to contain brown seeds covered in an orange-red aril in summer.

Now it is the turn of the birds who find the seeds very attractive. Those that are not recycled this way fall to the ground and generally germinate. These young trees are browsed by wallabies and so not many make adult trees.

Very interesting news letter

ALLOCASUARINAS – Members of the Casuarinaceae

2008-03-17T15:09:00.030+11:00

I have been seduced by a denizen of the Australian bush!

I find myself drawn to him, I admire his stunning tall and handsome bronzed good looks. It’s true his wardrobe consists only of shades of brown, but he shines and gleams like burnished copper as he gently sways with the breezes and turns first this way and then that in the autumn sunshine. He may be wearing golden brown, rusty brown, or sometimes the thick gooey amber of thick, rich honey, but always, always - he attracts attention.

Most of the time the Casuarinas and Allocasuarinas take their place in the bush very modestly - without drawing attention to themselves at all – until they flower. And then surely it is “Look at me, look at me!”

The colour consists of hundreds and hundreds of skinny, long, male “flowers”, all swaying in the breeze, sending their pollen off on a journey, hoping they will land on a female “flower”.
The male flowers are actually stamens in spikes at tips of branches, but it’s easier to refer to them as flowers.

My interest in these small trees began long ago, before I had even heard of the Casuarinaceae, when I would drive my school aged children to the station along a road lined with Allocasuarina distyla, interspersed occasionally with the very attractive Allocasuarina torulosa. Every morning and afternoon in March and April, I would remark on how beautiful they were, and every time my children would look back at me and roll their eyes in disagreement - “But Mum they’re brown” was the chorus from the back seat. To them brown was not a colour to be admired. I never could persuade them otherwise.

And so it is with other people. People are often concerned for the health of my beautiful trees. They think the trees are dying and they allow a flicker of concern to curl around the tree as they speed past on their way to somewhere else. But if you take the time to stop, hop out of your car and inspect that glorious orange/brown coloured tree you will cease to be concerned and may be won over, as I am.

This photograph is Allocasuarina torulosa

Once all members of the Casuarinaceae family were Casuarinas but they have been reclassified due to some differences in the fruit, and we have gained the rather clumsy Allocasuarina, which are distinct from the Casuarina but still remain in the Casuarinaceae family. Ah, the mysterious ways of science.

All share the jointed cylindrical branchlets which remind people of a pine tree but there is no relationship at all. The Casuarinaceae are in a group all on their own and unlike the conifers which they resemble they are true flowering plants. The Casuarinaceae family is native to Australia, southeast Asia and islands of the Pacific.

My interest in these trees was rekindled a couple of years ago when I was in the bush searching for pretty flowers to photograph. I caught sight of the little red female flowers and was amazed. Amazed because I didn’t know about them. Amazed because I had never seen them before, amazed because they had never been drawn to my attention in any book I had read on native plants.

They are very small it is true but very attractive as they cluster in numbers along the branchlets.

I have discovered that there are always some flowers to be seen, though the greatest number occur now (March, April); at the same time as the males are flowering away brilliantly.

Sometimes the female flowers are a tawny shade of bronze to match the menfolk but more often they are red. They aren’t flowers so much as tiny brush-like clusters of reddish stigmas.

Some Allocasuarina trees have both male and female on the same tree which seems a much more sensible idea to me. Much less hit and miss with the fertilization technique.

In the case of Allocasuarina distyla the male and female flowers are on different trees, generally in close proximity. It is only when the male starts to flower that you can see the difference between the two.

Of course if you get out of your car and have a look you will see that all the female trees are clustered with cones at various stages of development, and so it becomes obvious which is which.

Even without the flowers I find the cones themselves attractive. The cones aren’t large, think thumbnail size.

When the time is right the cones split open and release the seed.

Farmers are not as enamoured as I of the casuarinas because nothing much will grow beneath the trees and some maintain that they somehow poison the ground. More study needs to be undertaken to figure out what is going on but for our purposes we will just acknowledge that they may be seriously defending their patch and continue to appreciate them for their beauty.

Eucalyptus propinqua

2008-02-17T11:39:00.025+11:00

Otherwise known as grey gum. There are so many trees given this name on the east coast of Australia, because there are rather a lot of grey gums. About ½ dozen are members of the Grey Gum Group - rather obviously named for their grey bark. All members of the group are prized for the strength and durability of their timber, and in the early days of European settlement were heavily logged for use in construction.

The tree can appear to be a small mallee in tougher sites where the soil doesn’t quite suit, but on the Central Coast we generally see a beautiful tall, elegant tree, 35 m or so high, with a tall, straight cylindrical trunk.

The bark sheds to the ground, there is no collar.

Some people complain about the mess that gum trees leave in their gardens. It is true that they shed huge quantities of bark, but only once a year, and it makes wonderful kindling, is a good weed suppressant, and most importantly, makes a home for uncountable creatures as it breaks down and becomes soil. They can grow to be very large tree so are not really suited for today’s smaller gardens in any case. Whilst we hang on to our remnant bushland you can enjoy them that way, interspersed with other beautiful gums.

The name, grey gum, is a dead give away in what to look out for in the tree, but at this time of the year they can surprise.

Most of the time they are a rather uniform, granular surfaced, mottled grey, but once a year the bark is shed in huge slabs and displays new colours, ranging from pale cream to light orange.

Then, more occasionally, when the rainfall has been heavy over spring and summer, the same process is carried out - but this time displaying a most vivid orange trunk.

This year, 2008, the grey gums are spectacular. Tall streaks of bright orange can be seen glowing through the rich greens of the bush. It really is a spectacular sight for a month or two.

The last time I saw them this good was in 2001, also following a few months with a lot of rain. In the afternoon light after a wet day they are just fabulous. I want to use words, like stupendous, gorgeous, fantastic, mind boggling, etc. It’s the only way to try and get across just how wonderful these trees are.

Once the new bark weathers the colour fades to a light grey then weathers a little more until the medium grey is back for the rest of the year. The magic comes to an end.

Like most of the eucalypts on the East coast they have broad lanceloate leaves, 14cm x about 3.5cms. The leaves are discolorous, glossy, green above and lighter below.

The many chewed holes in the leaves attest to the fact that they are enjoyed by wild life.

The bark is often covered in scratches too which I suspect are made by goannas as they patrol the trees looking for food, birds nests for example.

The trees are also a food source for koalas so I suppose there is a chance the scratches are their doing. I have never seen a koala in the wild in my neighbourhood, but I have heard them calling during mating season so that remains a possibility.

Lastly the flowers. Like all east coast gums they are white. In the case of this particular grey gum they are also sparse and held generally high in the canopy and so the searcher doesn’t often see them with the naked eye. It is surprising how easy it is for small white flowers to blend in with canopy and the sky as you search both.

The buds are held in groups of 7 to 15 and are pointy. There is a scar across where the bud top will fall away to expose the flower. They flower January to March.

The following fruit hang on the tree for quite a while. They are small, round and with a cross in the top, rather like a small round hot cross bun

Gomphocarpus fruticosus

2008-02-03T14:32:00.001+11:00

Gomphocarpus fruticosus has many common names; Narrow-leafed Cotton Plant, Cotton Plant, Balloon cotton bush, Swan Plant, Tinder Plant, Tennis Ball bush and Milk Weed.

Though the plant is South African in origin it has become naturalised in the warm temperate zones of Australia. It is a weed of grasslands and disturbed sites in partial shade or full sun and may be spotted growing along road verges and railway lines. This photograph was taken alongside a busy road where the patch of plants was roughly 4 metres by 1 metre, hardly plague proportions.

It is a short-lived perennial shrub growing half a metre to 2 metres high. The leaves are mid green, 10 cm long and narrow, and arranged in opposite pairs along the stem. Like other members of the Asclepiadaceae the plant exudes a milky sap if the stem is broken or cut, which contains cardiac glycosides.

When working amongst these plants protective clothing is suggested, as some people have an allergic reaction to the sap. In South Africa the plant has a history of use in traditional African medicine. The dried leaves and roots were used to alleviate headaches and the Afrikaans settlers used the dried seeds as tinder.

The 15mm, tiny, creamy-white flowers with purple coronas fall in clusters from the leaf axils near the end of the stems. The bush continues producing flowers throughout spring and early summer and, though small, the sheer numbers of the flowers make them very attractive indeed.

These develop into large inflated bladder- like balls, which become straw coloured with age and then later split to disperse the seeds on the wind.
Compared to the size of the flowers the seed pod is enormous, being 60 mm long or thereabouts.

These oval, slightly pointed fruits are sparsely coated with soft protuberances.
I hesitate to name them spikes or prickles because that has unpleasant connotations, whereas these are rather soft and rubbery against the skin, even when dried.

The fruits are the cause of the common names swan plant and cotton bush. Using your imagination one could make a swan out of the bend of the stem and the green seed pod but the cotton bush epithet is more easily understood, because when the fruit splits to disperse the wind borne seeds they look very much like an open cotton boll. They have no relationship to cotton however.

Many find the fruits attractive in their own right and they are often used in floral arrangements or floated in bowls in place of flowers.

Gomphocarpus fruticosus makes it onto the Noxious Weeds List for Western Australia and onto the Australia wide Weeds List. This is because the plant is poisonous if eaten by domesticated animals and is an expensive nuisance if it contaminates a crop.

The leaves are not poisonous to all living creatures however. The Danaus plexippus butterfly spends the larval stage of its life munching on those very leaves which cause problems to domesticated animals.

The larvae are beautiful and fascinating in their own right. Instead of a flower arrangement a branch of Gomphocarpus fruticosus, complete with caterpillars and pupa, make a very unusual living arrangement.

Just be sure to pack the edges of your vase with something like screwed up newspaper, poked in firmly, otherwise the caterpillars may drown if they decide to go walk about. It is very exciting for adults and children alike to watch the life cycle of caterpillar to adult butterfly. Be sure to warn children that all parts of the plant are poisonous to them.

Those of us who are lucky enough to have space to set aside for a wild garden can enjoy the sheer beauty of the caterpillars, butterflies, flowers; and even those bizarre seedpods, outside.

So though Gomphocarpus fruticosus is listed as a noxious weed let’s allow it to grow along railway embankments or road verges. There it spreads in a contained manner, and is just about eaten bare by the end of summer. The adult butterflies then bring pleasure and enjoyment to many people.

Whilst neither Gomphocarpus fruticosus nor Danaus plexippus are natives to Australia if that is going to be held against them then most of us are going to have to pack up and move out with them.

Rubus Brambles of the Central Coast, NSW

2008-01-27T20:16:00.000+11:00

Rubus is a world-wide group of prickly, shrubby, scrambling plants. They use their thorns to protect themselves from herbaceous animals and also to enable them to scramble through other shrubs. They are very easy to propagate as they grow readily from stem cuttings and root suckers. There are approximately 250 species of Rubus, including many well-known edible fruits such as raspberry and loganberry, but only about seven species native to Australia. These too have edible fruits, though accounts of their taste vary widely; they have been described as both tasteless and sweet and juicy - perhaps it depends on how hungry you are.

They nearly all have flowers with 5 broad petals and 5 persistent sepals with numerous stamens. The fruits are segments clustered together into an aggregate fruit, which ripens to either red or black depending on the plant.

Possibly the most well-known to Australians is the introduced Rubus fruticosus or Blackberry, which is now a serious pest in many parts of Australia. Less well known are our own native varieties.

Weedy Varieties first
Rubus fruticosus complex (native of Europe). Many very closely-related introduced plants are grouped under this one name because of the difficulty in distinguishing between them. They include:

R. cissburiensis Barton & Riddels
R. laciniatus Willd
R. polyanthemus Lindeb
R. procerus Muller
R. rosaceus Weihe & Nees
R. selmeri Lindeb
R. ulmifolius Schott
R. vestitus Weihe & Nees

Regardless of which name you choose to use they are all erect woody shrubs; up to 5m high, with scrambling prickly stems up to 6m long. They can quickly cover vast areas of the bush, creeks and river banks, road-sides and pastures in temperate high rainfall areas of all States.

They achieve this growth rate because wherever the long shoots touch the ground they are capable of rooting. They grow rapidly and are notoriously difficult to remove. Each piece of root or stem left behind can re-grow in one season.

They have compound leaves of 3 to 5 evenly or irregularly toothed leaflets with prickly petioles. The flowers are white but may shade towards pink, and cluster at the ends of branches.

The ‘berries’ are globular and ripen from green to red to black in late summer.

Our native raspberries turn red when they ripen. These are not yet ready to eat. They will turn black when fully ripe.

The native Rubus species are not quite as troublesome, they include Rubus nebulosus (bush Lawyer) and some which seem quite tame by comparison, for example R.rosifolius ,R. moluccanus var. dendrocharis (syn R. hillii), R. parvifolius.

Rubus rosifolius – Rose Leaf Bramble

This is the one most likely to be mistaken for the introduced blackberry as it looks quite like it until you look very closely. R rosifolius has light-green pinnate leaves of five to seven toothed leaflets (one more set of leaflets to Rubus fruticosus).

It has very prickly stems and backs of leaves

Like R fruticosus (blackberry) it has spreading rhizomes which may produce dense thickets of arching branches up to a metre high. The flowers are quite large and very attractive with five or more large white petals. R. rosifolius flowers and fruits all year round.

Its fruits are more strawberry than raspberry shaped. The fruit is edible but insipid; however it is enjoyed by many native birds.

Again, like the introduced blackberry, this is a very hardy plant which may become invasive if moved from its natural areas. It grows in all soils and conditions, particularly on the margins of rainforests and is an important food source for native birds.

Rubus moluccanus var. trilobus

This plant could not so easily be mistaken for weedy blackberry, though it has the same scrambling habit and long prickly stems. It has similar flowers and fruit, but is a much more genteel plant and is nowhere near as prolific at covering vast tracts of ground.

Its leaves are broadly ovate to heart-shaped, 6 to 10cm long and wide, with finely toothed margins and is rusty-hairy underneath.

Flowers are pink (occasionally white). Fruit is a red globular berry, about 12mm across.
The fruits were part of the diet of the Aborigines and a medicinal drink to relieve stomach upset was made by soaking the leaves in warm water.

The leaves are eaten by a variety of creatures.
Rubus moluccanus var. trilobus grows in sheltered forest and rainforest margins or clearings along the coast zone from Queensland to Victoria. They flower November to February.

Rubus nebulosus
Bush Lawyer
Another one which looks like its relative the blackberry. This one is an extremely prickly plant as the branches and leaf stalks are all covered with numerous prickles. White flowers are borne in loose clusters from the leaf axils and the ripening fruit is dark red. It enjoys similar conditions to the other Rubus and is widespread along the East coast in sheltered forest and margins of rainforests. It flowers October to January.

Rubus parvifolius

Native raspberry, Small-leaf Bramble

A very tiny species, (growing on the Central Coast of NSW the largest terminal leaf is only finger nail size).
It can be a prostrate or a scrambling shrub with finely thorny canes to 60cms long; nowhere near as vigorous as most other Rubus species.
The leaves are compound, with 3 or more leaflets, 5 to 30 mm long, deeply wrinkled and often deeply toothed, silver on the underside. The terminal leaf is larger.
It has papery, persistent sepals and short, pale pink, mauve or red petals. The fruit is edible, small and sweet, again similar to a cultivated raspberry.

It flowers October to December.

Dioscorea transversa

2008-01-20T21:57:00.000+11:00

Dioscorea is a family of about 630 species, most of which grow in the tropics. They are herbaceous climbers with annual twining stems up to 4m long, and tuberous roots which are generally deep underground.

The Australian Dioscorea transversa is one of our native edible yams. The tuberous roots were eaten by the aborigines, either cooked, or in the case of young tubers, raw. As the roots are deep underground they must be good to be worth the effort of digging them up, without the aid of metal tools. They grow in warm temperate rainforests and moist schlerophyl open forests; mostly along the eastern seaboard of Australia.

They may first draw themselves to your attention with their large papery seed capsules that hang on the plant for many months, maybe even years. They just become more and more old parchment-papery like as time goes by. Of course the actual seed is long gone, just the housing remains.

They have beautiful simple alternate heart-shaped leaves which vary enormously in size and colour, usually 5 – 12 cm long and 2 – 8 cm wide. They have 5 – 7 deep veins along the leaf which help to identify Dioscorea transversa from the other heart-shaped leaves growing alongside them in the rainforest.

The leaves are a real feature of the plant for most of the year as new leaves emerge a bronzy pink and change to a very attractive apple green as the weeks of summer pass.

Male and female flowers are carried on different plants with the flowering season generally from August to November; both male and female flowers hang down in long racemes that blow about in the wind, which presumably aids in the pollination process

The male flowers begin to appear a month or so earlier than the female flowers. .

Male flowers are tiny, with anywhere between 1 to a dozen racemes per axil. Some racemes are very short and others are up to 40 cm long. The flowers last for at least 6 weeks and look like little green seed pearls spaced evenly along the stalk.

In contrast the female racemes have fewer flowers per axil and so they are much shorter. The colour too is quite different. The flower stems are a purplish pink and the tiny little flowers more yellow than green. Close inspection reveals the triangular shape of the coming seed pod already there in the female flower; it just awaits pollination from the male.

Seed pods are formed very quickly once pollination takes place and they swell almost before your eyes into the greeny pink capsules you see in the photograph. The colour merges extremely well into the bush and unless you are searching for them it is surprisingly easy for the eye to glance over and not see them at all.

As they age they become more obvious with a colour change to resemble a sandy, parchment paper

Next time you are walking through or near rainforest look out for Dioscorea transversa.

Native Bees

2008-01-17T22:19:00.000+11:00

On my daily walk around the garden, camera in hand, I spotted something a little odd about a grass head hanging out over the dam. I knelt down to take a closer look - I could see a lot of bugs, shield bugs maybe, clustering on the tip of a paspalum flower stalk. I leaned it close, perilously, as the edges of the dam are soft and the stalk was over the water. I thought I was snapping another shot of common orangy bugs which seem to spend their lives locked in a loving embrace.
Fortunately nothing untoward occurred and I was able to snap a lot of photographs; my actions didn't seem to bother the "bugs" at all.
When the photographs were download I was very surprised. They were bees!

Tiny little bees, difficult to see properly even with the aid of my glasses, with sweet little sheep-like faces. I was so excited I made my husband stop what he was doing and come and see. He, long suffering fellow that he is, joined me and then

became just as excited. They were just so appealing, clustered along the stem as they were.

By the time I had rounded him up some time had elapsed and they had begun to disperse. He relieved me of the camera and took a couple of shots (the one with only three bees is one of his).

I don't know where all the bee experts have their information on the web, because I've searched, and had no luck identifying these little fellows. I read somewhere that there is a species of native bee that congregate together overnight and then disperse once they warm up in the morning, and I suppose that is what my bees were doing.
Sadly I have never seen them again.

That is why I walk around the garden at least twice a day, camera in hand - you just never know what you will spot.

Excuses

2008-01-12T14:19:00.000+11:00

Has it really been six months since I posted a Blog? No excuses. We are all busy, all side tracked etc etc.

What I've been doing is sewing, (making quilts actually), working for money, travelling, hosting interstate relatives and gardening of course. That never stops unless you wish to be over powered by weeds. Those of you following the weather will know that the eastern coast of Australia, or at least parts of it, has had some decent falls of rain in the past six months. So we've had the rain, floods, pestilence but not yet the famine, here on my block, though that may follow if the areas where food is grown in Australia don't have some rain as well.

In my little patch we have had lots of rain and the bush has responded with the most amazing outpouring of flowers. I've have taken hundreds of photographs, spent hours poring over books and on the internet trying to name them all, and have catalogued the lot, all in plant families. Hours and hours have been spent prowling around the bush photographing every bit of colour, every nuance of leaf change and of course anything that moves.

The more of that sort of thing you do the more you learn how little you know. Factor in computer crashes, lost files and maddeningly inefficient systems and suddenly not just hours have gone by but months too. I now have a huge catalogue of photographs of all the native plants in my little patch of rainforest, and many of my street and neighbourhood as well. Many of them I can now recognise from a leaf or a seedpod, which impresses my husband no end, but alas no one else is much interested.

Australian native flowers are often very small and here on the east coast often white as well. If I were to publish a blog of photographs of native flowers, which are tiny and white, that would not be very interesting viewing, but as I've been doing all the photographing and labelling and simply knowing the names of things for my own sake that doesn't matter I suppose.

It would be really nice to be able to make some money from one's hobbies - but I haven't yet figured out how.

Ileodictyon cibarium - Lattice Fungus

2007-06-15T11:05:00.001+10:00

This is the most interesting fungus I have seen for quite some time. Obviously conditions were perfect because there were a number of specimens in the one area, at various stages of growth and decay.

Firstly was this strange little shape. It actually looked quite bizarre as its windows wobbled in the breeze. These things aren't small either. I suppose this would be about the size of an adult fist. Very strange and jellyish looking.

Next the membranes broke open and this funny looking crumpled thing unfolded. I can't say how long each stage lasted because, as I said, I saw all of them on the same day. They were in an area where new leaf mulch had been purchased and spread out in the last couple of months Whether they came in with the leaf mulch and then grew or were already in the ground and enjoyed the conditions I don't know.

After the unfurling it looked just like a little plastic indoor ball.

Here's the ball complete now and then follows the decay as the ball collapses in on itself.

All that's left are the lattice shapes of the fungus ball that was.

Unknown stripey beetle on Physalis peruviana

2007-05-05T22:57:00.000+10:00

Those of you lucky enough to have had a childhood wandering where you wished with your "gang" will recognise a Physalis peruviana, though perhaps not by that name. This plant grows readily from seed and can very quickly colonise any old space as the plant grows, fruits and seeds all in a month or two. Poor soil doesn't seem to slow it down either, so you can have someone's old, neglected garden or a piece of wastleand just out of town covered in these plants. The most memorable thing about them from a kid's point of view is that they have wonderful small berries of golden sun-ripened fruit just the perfect size for a little mouth. Each day sees new ripenings, and the cropping period extends over a long period of time, peaking in the last few weeks of the summer school holidays in Australia.

So raiding an area overgrown with Chinese gooseberries, as some call them, whilst studying the various insects which like to call the plant home can usefully fill many hours of a kid's life.

Whilst reliving the odd happy memory and searching the plants for those yummy berries, which fortunately still taste good to my adult palate, I have also been watching the insects which call the plant home.

The eggs on the right belong to a stripey beetle, which for want of its real name I have christened the Golden Humbug Beetle.

She laid a group of eggs like this on a large number of otherwise unoccupied leaves. They are the oddest little group of long cylindrical pointy upwards eggs, each with a brown dot on the top and always laid underneath the leaf, out of sight.

As they hatched and grew the larvae marched outwards eating everything in their path. They were a fairly ugly looking moving mouth.

This picture I love. It shows the larvae leaving behind the leaf they have completely eaten away and marching off to pastures anew, almost like a family fleeing the aftermath of some terrible calamity and searching for a new, safer life elsewhere.

They found somewhere better on the next leaf across and began to grow and grow.
However their lacky of beauty remained with them.

Their bodies now look like bloated pieces of dirt or tiny pieces of mud. The photograph has been enlarged and in real life my eye passed over them thinking them rubbish. The photograph when placed up on my computer monitor showed me they were living creatures, with very strange misshapen bodies.

The end result is these stripey beetles. Their growth cycle is just as speedy as the plant which they colonised, as many beetles and eggs continued growing, mating and hatching for weeks. There are still a few left though the odd cooler night seems to have slowed them down. The plant is absolutely covered in fruit which I hope still has time to ripen, so having its leaves eaten doesn't seem to have done it any lasting damage.

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