Eucalyptus propinqua

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.