Toowoomba Plants

Herbert’s Passionfruit

2012-01-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

Passiflora herbertiana
There are so many weedy introduced passionfruit species in our local bushland, that the locals (two subspecies of P. aurantia, and this one) can easily be overlooked.
However, they both have quite distinctive leaf shapes unlike the leaf shape of any introduced passionfruit, so they are easy to distinguish once you’re in the know.

If in doubt, check out the glands on the stem near the base of the leaf. Their position differs on each passionfruit species. Both our locals have two, which hug the leaf-stem quite close to the leaf (see photo).

Herbert’s passionfruit is easy to overlook because its flowers are not particularly showy - but (with the exception of the introduced passionfruit Passiflora edulis, which has the familiar black fruit and can also be found growing wild) it has the best fruit for eating. They are also our largest local native passionfruits.
As with all passionfruit species including Passiflora edulis, the unripe fruits are poisonous. However, the poisons are not so strong that harm would come from a mouthful - and the experience is unlikely to be repeated because of the unpleasantly bitter taste of the fruit.
Herbert’s passionfruit doesn’t change colour as it ripens. Instead, you can tell whether it is ready for eating by the way the fruit softens. It must be quite soft and squashy, for the best flavour, and is delicious.

The flowerbuds seem to promise colour, with these bright salmon-coloured sepals.

However they open to greenish white, gaining no more than the faintest orange stain as they age.

The plants like to grow in the dappled shade of trees. They are drought hardy, and survive frosts and fires by dying back to their roots, growing again once the danger has passed. This ability would make them amenable to being tidied up with the secateurs once the fruiting season has finished.

Like all native passionfruits this plant plays host to glasswing butterflies (Acraea andromacha.)

Here are some glasswing caterpillars which have made themselves at home on my neighbour’s plant, and are demonstrating how very suitable this passionfruit species is, for wildlife garden planting.

Embelia Vine

2012-01-20T23:56:00.000-08:00

Embelia australiana

Plant identification keys often ask us whether the plant that we’re trying to identify has “translucent oil dots”.

This little plant most certainly does!

It’s the dottiest plant I’ve ever seen, as I discovered when I held a leaf up to the light.
(Double click for a good look at those lovely dots.)
This plant is growing in dry rainforest on stony black soil, on the eastern edge of the Great Dividing Range north of Toowoomba. Potentially a tall, slender, woody climber, this is a plant that can grow as a shrub if it finds nothing to climb on.
An attractive plant with its pale-veined leaves, it is characterised by touches of bright red The clusters of pale greenish-brown flowers have bright red calyces The autumn fruits are bright red, and so are the new leaves.
As a garden plant, it would have the added virtue of bringing fruit-eating birds to the garden.

Fern-leafed Germander

2012-01-20T23:49:00.000-08:00

Teucrium argutum var. incisum
The native germander familiar to those of us who live in the Toowoomba area is the variety known as “var. argutum”. (See April 2011 for a description of it.)
Less well known is this variety from the dry plains to the west, which has soft, deeply incised leaves. This pretty plant has recently been put in at Peacehaven Botanic Park in Highfields, where the shelter now provided by the maturing trees of the Dry Rainforest section is enabling the planting of smaller plants amongst them to begin.
Its flowers, as you can see, resemble those of “var. argutum” (below) but the leaves are quite distinctive.

Bringing in the Beetles

2012-01-20T23:45:00.001-08:00

Melicope micrococca
The white doughwoods are flowering around the district now.
Their flowers are very attractive to insects, and especially to beetles, as you can see from this lovely fiddler beetle, one of dozens which have been coming to my tree.
Plants which attract insects are a good choice for a wildlife-friendly garden, as not only do the insects provide “life” in themselves - but they bring in the birds which prey on them.
See January 2011 for more on this local shade tree.

Yellow Sunray

2012-01-12T22:04:00.000-08:00

Leocochrysum albicans
Sometimes, the names of flowers can be so inappropriate as to raise a smile.
“Leucochrysum” is a name cobbled together out of two old Greek words. “Leukos” meaning white (familiar to us from “leukemia”, the disease of white blood cells), and “chrysos” meaning gold.
“Albicans” is another reference to whiteness, and just to really rub it in, our local plant is Leocochrysum albicans subsp. albicans var. albicans!

This somewhat overdone insistence on whiteness is all very well for the people of New South Wales, where the petal-like bracts of the plants are actually white - but here in Queensland it is an all-yellow flower.

I photographed these a few weeks ago at the Bunya Mountains, where the plant grows among grasses on dry, open ridges in very well-drained soil.

Yellow sunray is a short-lived perennial, but is often grown as an annual as it will produce early spring flowers from autumn-sown seed, and continues to flower until March. It is a slender plant, with soft, grey-green leaves, and looks best if a number of plants are positioned in a group.

Once you have it in the garden, it would be a simple matter to save seed each year to plant in April.

Narrow-leafed Myrtle

2012-01-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

Backhousia angustifolia (Anetholea anisata)
FAMILY: MYRTACEAE
The Backhousia species are all good garden subjects - attractive plants with aromatic leaves, fluffy white flowers (now showing), and bird-attracting fruits to come in autumn.

This narrow-leafed plant of the inland, photographed on a dry, grassy hillside at the Bunya Mountains, is the hardiest of them all, but is less often grown than are its softer cousins.
This is probably because it is not native in the coastal regions near Australia’s biggest cities, rather than because it is any less suitable for gardens.

Shown here as a fairly young plant, it is obviously something that would make a good screen. As it matures, it develops into small tree, which may have a single trunk, or be multi-stemmed - something a gardener can manipulate with judicious use of secateurs. It might reach 7m, but is most likely to be smaller.

The smell of the crushed leaves varies from site to site, with some smelling of curry or lavender. These ones, however, smelled of aniseed.

Golden Passionflower

2012-01-05T17:48:00.000-08:00

Passiflora aurantia var. pubescens
I was mystified when my companions and I found this flower, while walking (on private property) at the Bunya Mountains.

Its leaves looked like those of the familiar red passionflower, Passiflora aurantia, (below), which grows at Picnic point and various other places around Toowoomba, but the flowers were very different.

In the photo above you can see that the petals and sepals of the flowers of the familiar plant, which age from white to red, are always concolorous (a word which means that the back is the same colour as the front.)

Both plants have five rather small petals, and five larger sepals - brightly coloured ones which look like petals.
In our mystery plant, the sepals are discolorous. Their backs backs age from the pale yellow of this bud, to a stronger shade of yellow, always with a hint of green.

The front of the sepals, on the other hand, brightened - as did the little petals - from greenish white...

to deep orange.

The little ring of filaments, the “crown of thorns” in the centre of the flower, was very eye-catching in all stages - a gleaming fluoro orange, quite different from the soft pinkish red of the more familiar variety of Passiflora aurantia.

To our delight, a little research revealed that what we had was indeed P. aurantia - but a rare variety of it. It is P. aurantia var. pubescens, as opposed to the familiar P. aurantia var. aurantia.

The reference book which helped us distinguish between the two(Stanley and Ross. “Flora of South-eastern Queensland”) doesn’t mention the conspicuous differences between the flowers, but focuses instead on the “hairiness” of var. pubescens. (“Pubescent” is a botanical term meaning “hairy”.)

In practice, we needed a good magnifying glass to find the almost-invisible little hairs on the leaves and on the ovary.
(The ovary is that ovoid bit that’s going to turn into the fruit. To see it enlarged, click on the photo.)

Compare these two flowers, and you can indeed see that our golden passionflower's ovary is indeed softly hairy, while the red passionflower's is smooth.

It would be interesting to compare the mature fruits.

Meanwhile, another difference that we noticed was our inability to find any hint of the little glands on the leaf petiole of var. pubescens.
P. aurantia var. aurantia has a tiny, but easily found pair of them, just near the base of the leaf.
Something had been nibbling the leaves of our golden passionflower vine. Perhaps it was the caterpillars of glasswing butterflies, who may find it is just as good a host as its red-flowering relative. Like that plant, this light vine is something we would love to have in our garden.

Fire Pea

2011-12-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

Tephrosia bidwillii

We have very few local plants with bright orange flowers.

This pretty little fellow was flowering last week.

It's a herb which grows among grasses in open woodlands on our local black soils, (often on hillsides), as well as on sandstone soils.

The plant looks as though it might have potential in gardens. So far as I know, no attempt has been made to cultivate it, so little is known of its growth habit.
Has anyone out there grown it? I'd like to hear from you!

Kangaroo Apple

2011-12-29T16:00:00.001-08:00

Solanum aviculare
FAMILY: SOLANACEAE
These pretty plants are flowering and fruiting around the district now. They are familiar in our local national parks, where they grow on red soil, and on hillside black soil. It is seen at left in the Bunya Mountains...

...and at right in Goomburra National Park.

For several months in spring and early summer, it produces generous quantities of these attractive flowers.

Gardeners who grow potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants or chillies will be able to see, from the flowers, that this is a related plant.

Like those familiar food plants, the leaves and unripe fruits of kangaroo apple are poisonous. It is farmed in several countries of the world, to produce a drug, used in the manufacture of oral contraceptives, which is extracted from the young leaves and green fruits.

Solanum aviculare is native in New Zealand as well, and Maoris (who call it poroporo) cultivate it for the edible fruit. It should only be eaten when it is very ripe.

Aborigines traditionally burned off the outer skins, before they ate them.
This plant has potential as a garden ornamental. It is a fast-growing shrub, with large plants reaching 3m high, and is unlikely to live for much longer than five years. The leaves of young plants have large lobes on them, which disappear as the plants mature. It is useful as an ornamental filler in gardens, positioned between slower-growing, long-lived plants. It is also used as a rootstock for grafting eggplant.
New plants are easily grown from seed or cuttings
Kangaroo apple is moderately drought and frost hardy. It needs a sheltered site, and grows in full or part sun.

Cheese Tree

2011-12-15T15:14:00.000-08:00

Glochidion ferdinandi
FAMILY: PHYLLANTHACEAE
This tree was named for its little seed capsules, which grow on the female trees and once reminded some imaginative person of a wheel of cheese.

This may have seemed a reasonable analogy when you might have expected a cheese to be wrapped in cloth, tied up with string and dipped in red wax. Nowadays, we’re more likely to think they look like little pumpkins.
These on my neighbour’s tree are not ripe yet. As they mature, outer covering will (theoretically) peel off from the base, leaving a cluster of seeds which are covered by juicy red arils, on the tree. Red arils are always a sign that a tree is prepared to feed the birds, in the hope that they will spread the seeds about, so this is a good tree for a wildlife garden. I practice, I haven’t seen ripe seeds on my neighbour’s tree, so it may be suffering from the lack of a male partner to fertilise the flowers.
Dried immature fruits are added to pot pourri for an ornamental touch - but it seems a pity to pick them when they’re so pretty on the tree.

When it’s not fruiting, the tree can be recognised by its very shiny “two ranked” leaves. (This means that the leaves are arranged in two rows, and the branchlet would lie flat if you put it on a flat surface.)

This is only marginally a species of our district. It’s not found on the Darling Downs, but grows on the eastern escarpment near Toowoomba, and at Ravensbourne, in creeklines.

This well-shaped tree is about thirty years old. It was planted (in red soil) in what was a rather open space at the time, and survived many frosts before the other sheltering trees made frost less common around it. It had no supplementary watering from infancy, though there were good rains in its first few years of life. It has since thrived all through our long drought.

Cheese trees also grow happily under other trees - a useful garden characteristic - and would be an excellent tree to replace the privets which still choke many of our escarpment's sheltered valleys.
The species is a good orchid host.

Kangaroo Grass

2011-12-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Themeda triandra

The distinctive heads of this unmistakable plant are highly visible around the district at the moment, as they begin to go through their summer colour-change. The leaves go from light green to red-brown and the pretty flowerheads ripen to a showy russet-colour.

This was once Australia’s most widespread grass, and it is one of the easiest native grasses to identify.

Deservedly our most popular ornamental grass for landscape gardening, it is also useful in floral arrangements. One of the staples of a good wildlife garden, it is very attractive to birds, which appreciate the feast of large seeds. A nutritious plant, it is popular with kangaroos and wallabies, and with introduced livestock, which have grazed it heavily since the time of European settlement. Unfortunately it is easily killed by overgrazing, so tends to vanish from pastures.
It has been used in native lawn mixes, but just as it doesn’t tolerate heavy grazing, it can be killed by being mown too frequently or too short. It grows as a tussock, rather than spreading as do the better-known introduced lawn grasses, so you would only use it for a “lawn” in an area where this might be rather roughly defined!

Cultivated grassland" would be a better term, and it would be a pity not to let it go to seed each summer.

In pre-European times, kangaroo grass was managed with a regime of annual (winter) burning, which refreshed the plants ready for the new season. Burning is hardly practical in a garden, but a cut-back after the seeds have dropped, by hand or a high-set lawnmower, will result in more vigorous plants as well as natural regeneration. It is better if the grass cuttings are collected and removed, as this is not a plant that likes mulch.
Collecting seeds for propagation purposes can be a little tricky, as they must be very ripe - firm and hard rather than milky, and there is only a narrow window of seed-collecting time before they fall off the plants. A successful technique is to put a seed-trap under the plant to collect fallen seed, and empty it daily until enough has been collected. The seed then needs to be stored for nine months for “after-ripening” before being planted. It needs a cold period to help it germinate, so seed which is taken indoors should spend 4 weeks in the fridge, before being planted out. It is time to plant it once the daytime temperatures are over 25°.
We think of kangaroo grass as the quintessentially Australian grass, so it’s a bit of a surprise to discover that it is also native to South Africa. There they call it rooigrass - an Afrikaans word meaning “redgrass”. It is the only African species of Themeda, and it was given its botanical name there. "Themed” is an Arabic word referring to a depression where water lies after rain and dries up in summer - a clue as to how the grass likes to grow - plenty of water to get started, after which it will happily tolerate drought. It’s also frost hardy.

Native Caper Tree

2011-12-01T16:24:00.000-08:00

Capparis arborea
FAMILY: CAPPARACEAE

Franke Scrub at Highfields is a mass of butterflies at present, and this tree is one of the reasons. It’s a native caper, one of our five local Capparis species, and is host to at least four species of local butterfly.

This rather conspicuous plant is on the edge of the scrub. To find it, just drive around the edge and look for the butterfly-like white flowers and the butterflies that are hovering around it.

It’s worth looking for it in the morning, when the perfume of the fragile flowers is at its best. They only last a day, losing their petals by early afternoon.

This magnificent little tree may be several hundred years old, and is a good example of the naturally small dry rainforest trees which are so suitable for suburban gardens. Alas, they are sometimes undervalued - people who will see a large tree as old and therefore worth preserving may clear small ones because they don't appreciate that they, too are living relics of the pre-European era, so have heritage as well as environmental value.
This specimen's age is the reason that it is difficult to find the spines which are the most obvious identifying characteristic of caper species. They grow in pairs at the base of each new leaf, on all but the oldest trees. In seedlings, the spines are long and straight, but as the trees mature, they produce short, curved ones. Young trees might still have the remnant paired spines on their trunks, but older trees lose the prickly habit. Spines like this evolved as part of the "arms race" with herbivores. They protect the plants, which are otherwise very tasty, from being eaten, when it is young. Taller plants with sturdy trunks are not so vulnerable, so don't need the spines.
For more about this and other local Caper species, see articles posted November 2009, and December 2008.

Mapoon Bush

2011-12-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

Psychotria loniceroides
FAMILY: RUBIACEAE

This plant is flowering beside the walking track at Ravensbourne. The starry white flowers will be followed by yellow fruits which are edible when very ripe, but are rather insipid in flavour. The birds like them, though.

The name “loniceroides” suggests that the soft, velvety leaves are like Lonica - honeysuckle - but you’d have to say that the resemblance is slight!

In nature it grows as an understorey plant in dry rainforests. In a garden, it grows as a shrub, usually about 2m high. It is suitable for growing under trees and in densely shady places where it may stretch to reach the light, reaching as much as 5m in height. For a compact shrub in those conditions it would need pruning to keep the shape neat and the foliage dense. In full sun it won’t grow so high, but the foliage will be denser, and it will flower and fruit more prolifically.
Mulch to keep the soil damp will also improve the appearance of this drought-hardy plant. It needs well-drained soil, and grows very well on our local red soil.

Crows Foot

2011-11-24T16:18:00.000-08:00

Erodium crinatum
FAMILY: GERANIACEAE

This is a plant which some people don’t like to grow in their gardens, as they consider it weedy. I introduced it deliberately to mine some years ago. I am very fond of the bright blue flowers.

The plant is an annual that pops up in spring, fills a space with it’s fresh green foliage and delicate little flowers, and then is finished, needing to be pulled out, usually by early November. I always leave a few to seed, and they come up in the following year without any need for assistance. They are never very numerous, so I can’t say that I have found them weedy at all. Perhaps it’s their short life-span which some people object to?

The name “crows foot” is a reference to the shape of the leaf, but as you can see, it’s a bit of a stretch of the imagination to think of crows walking around on things shaped like this.

It is a very suitable plant for a children’s garden, because of its fast growth, and interesting seedpods. Their “storks-bill” or “cranes-bill” shape is typical of members of the geranium, but the ones from this plant are some of the most bird-like. As children my brothers and I used to use them to play at giving “injections”.

Being soft, they don’t hurt at all, unlike the polio injections which were the bane of every schoolchild in those days.
These are drought and frost hardy plants, and they like to be in full sun. They are easy to pull out once finished.
Aborigines ate the roots (roasted) as well as the seeds.

Golden Paper Daisy

2011-11-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

Xerochrysum bracteatum, (Helichrysum bracteatum), (Bracteantha bracteata)
FAMILY: ASTERACEAE
The cheerful, long-lasting golden flowers of this Australian icon are probably our best-known wildflowers. They are flowering madly in grasslands and road verges, all around our district, at present - and will go on doing so right through to autumn. They are easy to grow from seed, collected at this time of year and planted in March or April. Some plants will persist into a second year, but for garden purposes they are best grown as annuals.
Xerochrysums (by various names - the nursery trade hasn’t kept up with the botanists’ name changes) are sold in nurseries. These are cultivars, developed for the generous size of their flowers and shorter, more compact plants, and are usually perennial. There are also some multi-coloured annual forms, easily available in punnets (with names like “Bright Bikini”). They are the result of breeding done in Germany in the early 19th century, where they were crossed with African relatives of the Australian plant.

Our local natives, however, are easy to establish in our local gardens, and are bright and pretty.

Cutting flowers for use in vases only prompts the plants to produce more of them. It is a particularly good practice early in the season, as pruning the young plants makes them bushier. They have a tendency to get leggy in late summer. Planting them together with low-growing plants, produces an attractive result.
Paper daisies make very good cut flowers. Put fresh into vases, they last well over a week even in air conditioning. They are also suitable for drying, either by being wired as soon as they are cut, or by being hung upside down by their stalks, which will dry stiff and straight. Newly-opened young flowers are the best for floristry of all kinds.
Like all daisies, this species attracts butterflies to gardens. The adults of all kinds come for their nectar, and the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa kershawi) can breed on them.

Oakey Bottlebrush

2011-11-17T17:50:00.000-08:00

Melaleuca quercina
FAMILY: MYRTACEAE

I am so pleased to have been sent information about a “Callistemon” species which I had understood to be still unnamed. (see my article Feb 2011).

Apparently this very local plant was given a name in 2009 by Lyn Craven, working for CSIRO at the Australian National Herbarium. She has at last sorted out a number of closely related plants, establishing that this one, which is only known to occur in the blacksoil country from Oakey creek to Clifton, is a separate species. It was described and named from a specimen collected in 1991 on the western side of Brookvale Park Road, 10k west of Oakey, by Betty Ballingall.
Its new name, "Melaleuca quercina" requires a little explanation.
The plants that so many of us know as Callistemons have been moved into the Melaleuca genus which explains the first part of its name. All the "callistemons" are now officially melaleucas.
The second part, “quercina” is a rather dry little botany joke. Quercus is the Latin name for the trees we Australians call “English oaks”, and their relatives, so quercina refers to the plant’s habitat. Oakey Creek's name really has nothing to do with oaks of the Quercus kind, which is part of the joke, of course. It, and the town of Oakey which stands on its banks, got their name from the river she-oaks Casuarina cunninghamiana which once lined the creek.
If you want to be politically correct you can spell them “she-oke”, which is the modern approved spelling. The people who gave them the name in the first place didn’t care about political correctness. They named them after the familiar English oaks because of a similarity between the timbers, both of which, when quarter-sawn, have prominent and decorative medullary rays. Adding “she” to “oak” was, I am sorry to say, the way those men expressed the perceived inferiority of Casuarina timber.
So the link between Melaleuca quercina and any actual Quercus is a very tenuous one indeed - but but I like it!
I suggest that, for a common name, we could settle for calling it "Oakey bottlebrush".

Crows Nest Community Nursery

2011-11-15T21:16:00.000-08:00

Open Day
Saturday 3 December. 8.00am - 1.00pm

Owned and managed by the Toowoomba Regional Council, this nursery specialises in local native plants, grown from local seed. Prices for tubestock begin at $2.50.
The predicted wet summer may make this a good season for getting young trees and shrubs started, so the open day might be a good time to get hold of some suitable plants.
THE NURSERY’S ADDRESS: Depot Road, Crows Nest Industrial Estate
HOW TO GET THERE: If coming from the south on the New England Highway, turn right, into the Industrial Estate - BEFORE you get to the town proper. (If you cross the creek at Bullocky’s Rest, you’ve gone too far. Turn back.)
Follow Industrial Ave - the road parallel to the highway - then turn right into Timber St. At the end of that, turn right into Depot road. The nursery is at the end.
Enquiries, Ph. 0417 193 665

Tall Lobelia

2011-11-10T17:39:00.001-08:00

Lobelia gibbosa
FAMILY: CAMPANULACEAE
Here’s a little annual which I found flowering in the Pechey area last week.

It is sometimes known as “false orchid”, and perhaps it does look a little bit like a ground orchid - though orchid enthusiasts would disagree!

It’s a tall slender plant, often with just one stem. The narrow leaves on the lower part of the stem wither once it starts to flower. As you can see, its bright blue, one-sided flower spike makes it a showy plant for its size, which is about 40cm tall. However you would need a group of them for a garden display.
These lobelias can be grown from seed, and could be sold in punnets as native bedding annuals.
They like to be grown in well-drained soil, in part shade, and are frost resistant.
This one was growing naturally in woodland, with no more watering than the rain we get. However, in the garden, these plants do best if they are watered occasionally.

Peacehaven Blog

2011-11-05T00:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a new blogsite that you shouldn't miss!
http://friendsofpeacehaven.blogspot.com
As you can see, new botanic garden at Peacehaven is gettin up off the ground, and well worth a visit.

Bush Butterflies

2011-11-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

Velleia paradoxa
FAMILY: GOODENIACEAE
“Bush butterflies” is the name given to this pretty plant in Tasmania, no doubt because of the way it holds up its scented yellow flowers, so they seem to flutter above the plant.

Here, it goes by the more prosaic name of “spur velleia”.
It takes some rather close observation to find the spur after which it is named. It’s a tiny point which hangs down from the back of the flower.

I couldn’t manage to photograph it, so decided to show you the spur of a nasturtium instead. You certainly can’t miss this one! When you find a Velleia flower, check it out and you’ll find that it, too has a spur, albeit a tiny one.

To explain the spurs: You all know how seed-making works. Pollen from the male bit of a flower has to get onto the female bit of another flower. There are lots of variations on the theme of how it’s done, but a common one is for the flower to attract an insect to do the job.

It advertises with perfume and bright-coloured petals, carefully designed to direct the insect towards the centre of the flower while providing somewhere for it to stand. This aligns the insect in the desired position.

The insect is rewarded with a drink of high-kilojoule nectar, secreted by the flower from glands called “nectaries”, and in the process gets dusted with pollen, some of which brushes off on the next flower.
From a plant’s point of view, an insect which manages to get the nectar without doing the pollen transfer is a cheat and a fraud - but it happens. So flowers select their insects by providing facilities to suit those of the right size, shape, and behaviour.
One of these facilities may be a nectary spur. Insects which don’t have a long enough proboscis can’t reach down inside it to drink the nectar, so the supplies are kept safe until the right kind of insect comes along.
I’m not sure why this Velleia species was singled out to be named for its little spur, though, as a nectary spur is a common feature among the various Velleia species as well as the very similar-looking Goodenias.
Spur Velleia is potentially a good little garden plant. It is a short-lived perennial, fast-growing from seed, and producing a generous sprinkle of yellow flowers from early spring to autumn. It likes full sun, and just a bit of watering to get established. Once introduced to a suitable garden, it will self-seed each year.
This one of the Australian native plants that could easily be sold as a bedding annual, in punnets, for an instant spring garden.
Seed can be purchased from internet sources, or we can collect our own.

Telling the Goodenias from the Velleias.
There are a number of local species of Velleia and Goodenia, all with very similar-looking flowers. There are two ways to distinguish between them.
1. Velleias have a unique arrangement of the flower stem. Botanists, bless them, have a name for it - it’s called a “dichasium”. It means that the stem divides into three, with the centre stem having just a single flower, while the outer two stems each divide into three, with the centre stem having just one flower... and so on, according to the vigour of that particular flower stem. You can see it in the photo of Velleia paradoxa, above, but won’t find it on any Goodenias.
2. You’ll need to dismantle a flower to find the ovary. It’s the roundish bit that will turn into the seed capsule when it’s ripe (unless some curious person picks the flower, and dismantles it for science, first). In Velleia, the ovary is superior, in Goodenia it’s inferior. Superior doesn’t mean better! It just means that the ovary is above the point where the petals, sepals and stamens are attached. An “inferior” ovary is below that point. In some Goodenias, it is only “half-inferior”, while in others it’s clearly below the place where the petals are attached.

It’s Wildflower Time

2011-10-28T03:38:00.000-07:00

Swainsona galegifolia
FAMILY: FABACEAE
I visited a most delightful property, last weekend, at Ramsay.
I always enjoy this time of the year when flowering herbs come into their own. In this case, the plant which made the property outstanding was the Darling pea, Swainsona queenslandica.

I am familiar with the species as a plant that is very common just west of Toowoomba, on the stony hillside black soil (sometimes called “chocolate soil”). It also introduced itself to my own garden on the red soil.
It gets mistaken for another Darling pea, Swainsona galegifolia, but can be distinguished by its wings, which are about the same length as the keel (unlike those of S. galegifolia which are only 60% of the keel’s length.)
It also has the habit of spreading by underground rhizomes, whereas S. galegifolia has a clump of semi-woody stems, all sprouting from a single crown.

My plants, and those west of Toowoomba, are bright, lipstick pink.
(See article Sep 2008)

Those I saw last weekend at Ramsay, south of Toowoomba, are orange-red. This photo shows the root structure, and the rhizome which connected this section of plant to another set of flowering stems.

They seem to be the perfect colour for accent plants in a bushland scene. I found I coveted them for use in shrubberies, to be seen from a distance, and felt very privileged to be allowed to take some of them home.
The interesting thing about the plants on this property was that in one case, they seemed to be suffering from an identity crisis, and were coming up pink. Clearly, the pink and the red forms are very closely related indeed.

Killing Typhoid Mary

2011-10-28T00:33:00.001-07:00

I found myrtle rust in my garden yesterday.

We knew it was coming, of course, and I had been keeping a special eye on my brown malletwoods (Rhodamnia dumicola).

Although almost all members of the myrtle family (Myrtaceae) can potentially be affected by this nasty disease, I was aware that my malletwood is one of the most susceptible species, likely to be my “miners’ canary” for myrtle rust.
Having seen the new disease a few months ago in a nearby suburb (see posting on myrtle rust, July 2011) I had anticipated that it would probably arrive at my place, blown by spring winds, when the weather warmed up. So I was saddened but not surprised to find it infesting two little malletwoods on the eastern side (the upwind side) of our block. Only last week I posted new photos of them, in blooming good health. This week, hundreds of leaves were heavily infected!
A third plant in a somewhat more sheltered spot to the west of the block is (as yet) clean.
I rang Biosecurity Queensland and reported it. (They still want us to report new sightings at 13 25 23). Then I looked at the website which advises us on what to do with infected plants. http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790_20154.htm
The site offers householders a choice of options ranging from taking no action at all, through the use of fungicides, to removing healthy plants as a preventative measure.
Because malletowoods are so very prone to myrtle rust infection, I decided that the plants should go, but cutting them out this morning has made me feel quite miserable!
I don’t plan to remove all infected species in the future, but in the case of these very susceptible plants I felt that attempts to save them by spraying with poisons would probably always be followed rather rapidly by reinfection. I just don’t want a heavily diseased plant in my garden - a continuous source of copious quantities of rust spores putting all my other Myrtaceae at risk (not to mention those of my neighbours, with whom I would rather be on good terms).
I went and contemplated the healthy malletwood, but couldn’t face the thought of removing it today after the emotional stress of cutting out the other two.
I probably should, though.

The Miners’ Canaries
There has been a lot of research done on myrtle rust since it was first found in Australia last year. There is a potential for it to infect almost all of the Australian species of Myrtaceae.
So far, over 100 species have been affected in the wild. There are likely to be many more plants which will suffer to a greater or lesser degree, and growers of Australian natives should become aware which of the plants in our gardens are members of the Myrtaceae family so we know where to look for the disease.
Scientific testing has been established that some species (such as the malletwoods) are very susceptible, some only moderately so, and a few species seem to be immune to it.
If we are looking for it in our gardens, the plants to check most regularly are the most susceptible ones. Some plants known to be badly affected are:
Willow Myrtle Agonis flexuosa (including cultivars “Afterdark”, “Burgundy” “Jedda’s Dream”)
Brown Myrtle Choricarpa leptopetala
Silky Myrtle Decaspermum humile
Beach Cherry Eugenia reinwardtiana
Thready-barked myrtle Gossia inophloia (with popular cultivars like “Blushing Beauty”)
Broad-leafed paperbark Melaleuca quinquenervia (our most familiar paperbark)
Malletwoods Rhodamnia sp. (also called scrub turpentines)
Native Guava Rhodomyrtus psidioides
Aniseed Myrtle Syzygium anisatum (Backhousia anisata)
Rose Apple Syzygium jambos (not native)
Water Gum Tristania neriifolia
Southern penda Xanthostemon oppositifolius
Sadly, these are likely to be plants which may become unpopular in home gardens, because of their higher susceptibility to the ugliness of myrtle rust.

Myrtle Rust Immunity
Early this year I decided not to plant any further Myrtaceae in my garden until more was known about myrtle rust. I had been hoping to hear that some of our locals might be found to be immune to it
The bad news is that the more it spreads, the more species are found to be susceptible.
The good(ish) news is that some plants, though they are infected, are not too badly damaged by it. Seedlings cop the worst dose, though, and we still don't know whether it will affect these species' ability to have babies.
The best news is that 11 species have so far been found to be immune. It’s not many, compared with the plants that have succumbed, but it’s better than none!
They include three locals - Brush box, Lophostemon confertus, Swamp Box Lophostemon suaveolens, and Gum-topped box, Eucalyptus moluccana.
Those of us who have been avoiding planting any new Myrtaceae can now go ahead with these species, happy in the knowledge that they are likely to continue in good health.
In the case of the gum-topped box, the koalas will be pleased, too.

Brown Malletwood

2011-10-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

Rhodamnia rubescens
FAMILY: MYRTACEAE

This small tree is flowering all around the district at present.

It’s a particularly pretty plant, flowering profusely from a very early age. (This plant is only three years old.)
In a month’s time it will be covered in small, red bird-attracting fruits.
See Jan 2011 for photos of the plant and berries.

Common Woodruff

2011-10-20T21:57:00.001-07:00

Asperula conferta
FAMILY: RUBIACEAE
This is a modest little plant which can be introduced to a garden and let loose to make itself at home. It spreads by rhizomes, popping up stems where it will, yet is not dominant enough to crowd out other flowers. The dense, bright green foliage of tiny shiny leaves and the sparkling little white flowers make an attractive foil for flowers of other colours, filling what traditional gardeners might think of as the “Sweet Alice” niche.

It persists among grasses, so would be good in a native grassland patch. It is also suitable for garden edging, or among rocks or shrubs.

It gets straggly in autumn, when it can be cut back to ground level ready for the next season’s growth. This ability to regrow from the rhizomes also enables it to survive bushfires, popping up, freshly renewed, when the danger is past.
This tough little plant is hardy to frosts and droughts, and grown is full sun or partial shade
While the life span of an individual plant is indefinite because if its spreading habit, it would be desirable to have plants of both sexes so that they can also spread by self-seeding.

Climate Change on the Eastern Downs

2011-10-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

For most of us, the big climate change question has moved past the bickering about whether it is or is not happening, and whether it’s really being caused by humans.
The belief that we need to do something to reduce its future effects is becoming more widespread, as evidenced by the increasing number of people who are making the choice to live “greener”, the burgeoning investment in “green” technologies, and the decision being made by insurance companies that gambling on no change was likely to cause them financial pain. The most recent evidence of the changing weight of opinion is shown by our federal government’s recent decision to pass the carbon bills, a move that would have seemed unthinkable only a few years ago.
We are also recognising that climate change is not something we will ever be able to prevent completely. Even if we were able to stop the runaway increase in carbon emissions right now, greenhouse gases have already increased to the point where they would continue to cause change for many years to come. The only questions, now, are to what extent the people of the world will be able to keep it within reasonable bounds, and how the inevitable changes will affect us.
I recently got hold of the Queensland Government’s 2010 document on the subject, and found it interesting to read their projections (based on climate modelling done by the CSIRO) on how climate change is predicted to affect our own district.
In a nutshell, it will be hotter and dryer.
Calculations (based on the notion that the world will succeed in controlling its greenhouse gas emissions, to some degree), show that on the Eastern Darling Downs, average temperature is likely to be 1°C higher by 2030, average rainfall down by three per cent, and evaporation up by 3-4%. Of course these rather conservative figures will all be exceeded if there is no change (or less change than these researchers hope for), to the current rate of increase in greenhouse gases.
Whatever happens, we can expect fewer frosts, dryer winters, more heat waves and higher evaporation levels.
Water restrictions will be imposed more frequently. Those water conservation techniques that we learned, so that we could go on gardening during our recent 20-year drought, will be needed more than ever.
We’ll need to focus more on choosing heat and drought-hardy species for our gardens. We will enjoy our gardens more if we give up trying to nurse along those plants that would die if we failed to give then regular watering. As a trade-off, we may be able to grow some plants from northern districts which have previously been hard to keep alive through winter.
Australian native plants have had a long history of coping with climatic extremes, so are suitable plants to choose for a garden which will survive through change.
We are likely to show more interest in shady but drought-hardy trees such as our local dry rainforest species, rather than Eucalypts. (We love them, but they don’t keep the heat out of the garden.)
Scrub Wilga Geijera salicifolia( a dry rainforest species) and an Ironbark, Eucalyptus sp. both growing well despite the complete lack of garden care, both equally drought hardy. The wilga wins, in terms of providing livable shade!
Natural regeneration of native plants is likely to result in a slow move of our local species’ ranges, from north to south, and from west to east. Birds and other wildlife will change with the vegetation. Those native plants (some of them already very rare) which survive because they grow on cooler mountaintops may find themselves pushed uphill to extinction. Our conservation attempts should focus on these species.
Weeds which are currently kept in check by our frosts may invade. The effect will probably be greatest with woody plants and grasses. Highly flammable species like green panic, which loves to grow on rainforest edges, will increasingly threaten ecosystems that have previously been able to avoid being burnt because their plants have some ability to resist catching fire. (Once set alight, however, these plants are killed.)
Fires are likely to increase, putting pressure on those ecosystems such as rainforests and scrubs whose plants die when burned, and allowing them to be replaced by fire-tolerant species such as grasses and Eucalypts. Meanwhile, householders are likely to want to replace very flammable species (especially Eucalypts and introduced conifers) with non-deciduous plants that have green canopies and a reputation for not catching fire easily. Burning off, a practice which reduces short-term fire risk, but promotes an ecology dominated by flammable trees and grasses, is likely to come under review.
Plant diseases are also likely to spread southwards. So will diseases which affect humans, especially those borne by mosquitos. We may need to become much more careful, as tropical gardeners are now, not to risk our own health (as well as that of, for example, our neighbour’s children), by being careless about having water in the garden.
Our creeks and rivers will run dry more often, with a decline in both water quality and the native species that depend on them. The country is already addressing this problem by reducing rights to harvest water for agriculture. The decisions as to who has a right to how much water is fraught with difficulty, but I do hope that the needs of native plants and animals will continue to be factored in, and balanced with the very reasonable desire by landholders to make a living from their land.
Groundwater supplies will not be replenished at the current rate. We may see more use of soil surface treatments (such as mulch) designed to allow water to soak into the ground rather than run off. Driveways and other outdoor paving might also be used for water harvesting.
We can expect to see more restrictions placed on the use of underground water, as the levels drop ever more rapidly. It’s not wise to spend money on a bore in the belief that it will continue to be possible to fill gardens with plants from wetter climates, and keep them green with unlimited free sprinkling.
We will see more intense storms, rainfall events, and hail. We shouldn’t be lulled, by calculations of dubious mathematical integrity, into believing that last year’s “inland tsunami” was a “once in a hundred year event”, (or some such flaky figure). Our homes and gardens need to be designed to cope with such destructive summer downpours as the one in 2010. (So does all our public infrastructure, but that’s another story.) On the plus side, it is well worth putting in effective roof gutters and extra tanks to harvest these summer windfalls and save them for the increasingly dry winters.
Crows Ash Trees Flindersia australis. This Toowoomba residence takes advantage of a cool site among old trees.Built for Australia's variable climate, this is a dry rainforest species which is likely to weather climate change gracefully.

Hedge Saltbush

2011-10-07T01:05:00.000-07:00

Rhagodia spinescens
FAMILY: CHENOPODIACEAE
We caught this cockatoo, the other day, picking pieces off our saltbushes, and flying away to comfortable perch to nibble at the leaves.
Saltbushes are some of the very best plants for a wildlife garden. Their leaves are so very edible by all kinds of animals, (even by humans), and the fruits are popular with small birds.
Hedge saltbush make a very dense ground cover to about 50cm high, if grown in full sun. It excludes weeds very effectively, as well as providing shelter for small creatures.

This saltbush species tends to spread, as the branches lie down and take root, a process which makes them useful for retaining banks.

In this case where they’re being allowed to creep up the slope. New plants are easy to make, and some blanket planting would have the bank covered in a shorter time.
As its name suggests, it also makes a good hedge, with a once-a year trim (in late autumn) needed to keep it to the desired width.

The blue-grey leaves are attractive year-round, but the plant is particularly pretty from February to autumn, when it is in fruit.

See Feb 2010 for more on this versatile plant.

Mountain Burr Daisy

2011-10-03T03:48:00.000-07:00

Calotis cuneata
FAMILY: ASTERACEAE

The season is having a hard time getting out of its winter jacket this year - but we know it’s really spring when the daisies start coming out again.
After a slow start, the flowers are beginning to be seen in our local greasslands again.
We have tended to ignore our local daisies for garden use, yet there are a number of suitable species - modest little plants with considerable charm. Several of them, The Calotis species, area mixed blessing because each seedhead matures into a little prickly ball of seeds, which can break apart on contact, and leave seeds sticking in your socks.

The one pictured here is called "mountain" daisy, but this seems to be a bit of a misnomer, as it grows on the gently sloping blacksoil hillsides west of Toowoomba.
This is really only likely to be a nuisance to those who tramp through patches of them, though. The prickles are really neither very sharp or particularly annoying.
Meanwhile, the fresh white daisies are plentifully produced over a long season, and could be a worthwhile addition to a garden. They grow easily from seed, and also spread (though not too vigorously) by underground stolons. They would be happy to be left to creep around in a mulched area of garden.

They are short-lived perennials, best replaced from seed every three or four years. They are quite likely to do this without any help from us, coming up as self-sown seedlings where conditions are right for them.
As with all our local daisies, they are very hardy to frost and drought, and will grow in full sunlight or dappled shade.

Black Bootlace Orchid

2011-09-23T04:01:00.000-07:00

Erythrorchis cassythoides (Galeola cassythoides)
FAMILY: ORCHIDACEAE

It’s flowering time for this fascinating climbing orchid.

It’s a plant with no leaves at all, and is of the kind that is often called a “saprophyte”.

Most of the world’s plants need green stuff for survival. Chlorophyll is what makes leaves green. It’s a substance that is essential for photosynthesis, the process which is the plant equivalent of eating. Photosynthesis uses solar power to combine carbon (taken from carbon dioxide in the air) with hydrogen (from water, which is made of hydrogen and oxygen) to make carbohydrates.

Our bootlace orchid, however, has nothing green about it. Its rather evil-looking black bootlace stems come up from roots which are getting all the food the plant needs by being parasitic on certain soil fungi. The fungi, in turn, are growing on dead plant matter. The term “saprophyte” comes from sapro (decay) and phyte (plant). It means a plant that lives on decaying matter. Nowadays, however, the term is falling out of use, because it is now understood that the alleged saprophytes are really living on the soil fungi, which are themselves living on the decayed matter, Strictly speaking the plants are not saprophytes, but “myco-heterotrophs”!

Bootlace orchids climb up the trunks of their trees with these spongy, water-absorbing roots. For most of the year the plants are quite inconspicuous, but in spring they put out a great show of flowers.

They are closely related to a Mexican climbing orchid, Vanilla planifolia, the source of the vanilla we use for flavouring. You can see the bootlace orchid’s seed pod, which appears in February, does look rather like a vanilla pod.

Bootlace orchids are always found growing on eucalypts which are completely or partly dead - another good reason for not being too “tidy” about clearing away dead trees on our properties.

Not Really Quinine

2011-09-16T00:06:00.000-07:00

Petalostigma pubescens
FAMILY: PICRODENDRACEAE
Although it is known as “quinine berry” this local small tree has nothing in common with the medicinal plant, except its bitterness. It has been used medicinally by Aborigines and also by early settlers, (who were easy to convince that anything that tasted that nasty must be good for you). It was taken as a cure for malaria, but was not effective.
Its side effects can be dangerous, and include miscarriages and menstrual disorders. Like all bush medicines It should not be experimented with at home.
This very hardy plant of our dry vine scrubs has proven to be a consistent, easy to grow garden plant. It grows into a small, shady tree with a trunk diameter of about 20cm, and is unfazed by frost and drought.

Depending on how it is managed, it can be a small shade tree or an excellent screen or hedge. Female plants produce masses of creamy flowers in late summer, which mature to inedible yellow-orange fruits.

The above is the only Petalostigma which grows on our local basalt soils, but both it and a cousin, Petalostigma triloculare, grow in the sandstone soils of our eastern escarpment and hills. I have been sent these two lovely photos which so clearly illustrate the difference between the two.

P. triloculare is a shrub, whose berries ripen to a redder shade of orange. Its fruit divides into three “locules”, as seen here.

This picture of P. pubescens clearly shows how these under-ripe fruits divide into four, not three locules.
You can also see the slight overall hairiness of the whole plant.

My thanks to the photographer for letting me use his pictures on this site.

The Vet's Grasstree - an update

2011-09-10T01:16:00.000-07:00

Xanthorrhoea glauca subsp. glauca
FAMILY: XANTHORRHOEACEAE
Two years ago, I wrote about this lovely grasstree, one of Toowoomba's most remarkable plants, which grows in the grounds of the veterinary surgery on the corner of West and Herries Streets, in Toowoomba.

I had been told that it had been transplanted there, on a bullock dray, as a large tree - and also that its estimated age was 1500 years.
An interesting story, but quite wrong!
I was delighted to be contacted this week by a member of the family of Mr Ray Lamb, the man who did the transplanting. She had stumbled across my blogsite while researching her own family history.
So I was able to contact him and get the true story - and it turns out that not a single bullock was involved!
For the corrected story, see my article of September 2009
The encouraging thing about it, for those who'd like to grow a tree like this for themselves, is that with good care, you too may be able to produce a tree like this within your own lifetime.
(And if you're in Toowoomba for the Carnival of Flowers, don't miss seeing this lovely plant.)

Peacehaven Tours

2011-09-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

Toowoomba’s Carnival of Flowers is coming up, and the Friends of Peacehaven will be contributing their mite, by running free tours of this new and exciting Botanic Park, each day from
Saturday 17 to Tuesday 20 September, at 2.00pm.
It offers a chance for people to see the first operating Botanic Garden in the Toowoomba Region for many years.

This view, from the “Rainforest Path”, shows the Bunya Mountains in the Distance. Many of the trees planted in Peacehaven are species found in this Darling Downs rainforest.
The garden’s main focus is on plants native to the Downs. Plantings are now 4 to 6 years old, and the small trees are showing impressive growth, demonstrating how attractive our local plants can be and how suitable they would be for garden use. They include trees which attract birds and butterflies, and some bush tucker species.
The Friends of Peacehaven operate a small nursery, which will be opened briefly after each of the tours.
Peacehaven Botanic Park is in Kuhl’s Road Highfields.
To find it, head north out of Toowoomba on the New England Highway. A little over 6k from the northern edge of Toowoomba you reach Highfields’ first set of traffic lights, where you turn left into Cawdor road. Drive 1k, then turn right into Kuhl’s Road. Peacehaven is 300 metres along, on the left.

Arrowhead Violet

2011-09-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

Viola betonicifolia
FAMILY: VIOLACEAE
The arrowhead violets are flowering beautifully this week, all ready for Toowoomba's Carnival of Flowers.
The species grows naturally in forests and woodlands, preferring its soil to be a little damp. Its water requirements are not heavy, though. This year-old plant has had no watering since it was planted a year ago. It would be appreciating the mulch which keeps the soil moisture fairly constant.
For a brief period in the 1990s, this perennial native violet species was adopted as the floral symbol of Toowoomba, ousting the better-known “Toowoomba violet” (which is an introduced plant, a large-flowered variant of the European sweet violet Viola odorata).
While my head would prefer to see native plants rather than exotic ones adopted as symbols of cities, my heart is with the introduced plants in this case. Bunches of them were sold by mothers of soldiers lost in the first world war. The money so raised was used to build our iconic “Mothers’ Memorial”. It would be a pity to lose this bit of our heritage.

The spear-leafed violet is native to Toowoomba and along the range. Its deep purple flowers resemble those of the introduced violet, but are slightly redder in hue.

I can understand the wish to use it as our city’s symbol. It was once very common here, and hosted the Australian Fritillary butterfly, a species which is now listed as critically endangered, but may actually be extinct, for lack of the plants on which to rear its babies.
The plant flowers generously in spring. At other times of the year it has the botanically interesting habit producing seeds from small self-pollinating flowers which never open. This has given it an undeserved reputation for “not flowering well” - as the buds seem to come to nothing. It actually flowers beautifully, but only does it in spring.

Mountain Coolibah

2011-09-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

Eucalyptus orgadophila
FAMILY: MYRTACEAE
Just west of Toowoomba, on the blacksoil slopes, is Mountain Coolibah Country. Where you see them growing naturally, you know that the soil pH is approximately neutral, and, compared with soils further west, has a good proportion of phosphorus

Here’s a typical tree. Mountain coolibahs always seem to have a bit of a lean, in the main trunk, and then lesser branches have grown out of the upper side of the leaning trunk. The dark grey fibrous bark persists on the lower trunk, but the beautiful pale branches shed their bark every spring.

The mountain coolibahs are flowering at present. The flowers are not conspicuous, but the air around them is humming with the sound of the European honeybees, gathering the nectar and pollen.

If you live in mountain coolibah country, and want to plant a Eucalypt, you can hardly do better than this tree. It’s very resistant to both frost and drought, koalas love the leaves, and it's a good honey tree. Older trees make good hollows, which are safe havens for gliders and other shy bush creatures.
The hollows are also a popular habitat for our most drought-hardy orchid, the beautiful black orchid of the west, Cymbidium canaliculatum, which survives drought by sending its great mass of roots deep into the hollows of this tree.

As a young thing, mountain coolibah has these pretty blue-green leaves. Note that they are broader than the adult leaves, and have rounded ends with a distinctive notch.

In the original mountain coolibah woodlands, kangaroo grass Themeda triandra, which is now so fashionable for landscape gardening in the cities, was the dominant grass. Overgrazing has caused it to be supplanted by Queensland bluegrass, Dichanthium sericeum. Planting kangaroo grass with this tree in a garden setting would be a nice touch.

It is a fire-resistant tree, and can be part of a “fire ecology”, that type of local vegetation whose health is maintained by regular burning. However when fire is not a regular event in its environment, it shares its root-space with “scrub trees” - those small, shady dry rainforest trees such as scrub wilga Geijera parviflora, and gumby gumby Pittosporum angustifolium, which love to grow on the same soil.

Gumby Gumby

2011-08-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

Pittosporum angustifolium
FAMILY: PITTOSPORACEAE
Spring has certainly sprung this week at Irongate Environmental Park.

The gumby gumby are flowering with enthusiasm. They couldn’t even wait for last season’s fruit to be finished! (Double click to see detail.)

Insects of all kinds love their sweet nectar. This butterfly is a “striated pearl white” (Elodina parthia), one of the many attracted to the park by its plentiful supply of host plants, the native capers Capparis mitchellii.

These flowers will be followed, in summer and autumn, by a showy display of orange fruits.

They split to reveal seeds which are covered with sticky red arils, and are much-loved by seed-eating birds. King parrots feasting on them is one of our outstandingly beautiful local sights. The seeds are very bitter, and are said to ruin the flavour of the flesh of emus which eat them.

Gumby gumby is one of our prettiest local native plants. This specimen which I photographed in March, in a roadside park at Jondaryan, shows its neat natural shape.

It responds well to pruning, as the results of this rough job - done by cattle - demonstrate. With the secateurs, you can create a dense screening shrub whose foliage weeps to ground level, or a shady little tree. Cattle bush is one of its many common names. (Others are cumbi cumbi, meemei, berrigan, native apricot, and butterbush.)

This is a drought hardy and frost resistant plant. It grows well on all our basalt soils, but particularly likes our heavy blacksoil. Deep-rooted plants, they flourish despite competition from other trees, and are happy to grow under Eucalyptus trees.

2011-08-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

Thank Goodness for Road Verges
and Wild Places.
Acacia neriifolia
FAMILY: MIMOSACEAE
This wattle is the glory of our redsoil roadsides every August, yet it is a wattle that very few people choose to plant. When not flowering it’s a mildly attractive tree, but the only planted examples I have ever seen are a few scattered street in town. It’s a small tree (to about 8 metres), and is very suitable for the purpose. It would also suit a moderate-sized suburban block. It tolerates our worst droughts and frosts.

Here it is, growing wild in the Charles and Motee Rogers Park in Highfields. While I’m glad the park exists, I find it sad to think that glorious displays like this which are part of the annual cycle of the seasons in the Toowoomba district, may eventually only exist in parks and reserves. I’d like to think they would never disappear from our roadsides, but as a community we need to develop a higher regard for our dwindling patches of natural environment, if our great-grandchildren are ever to see a sight like the one we now take for granted each August, on the drive between Toowoomba and Crows Nest.
This tree is also a butterfly host plant.
For about it see August 2009

Forest Redgum

2011-08-10T19:34:00.001-07:00

Eucalyptus tereticornis
FAMILY: MYRTACEAE
This is another common local eucalypt, a beautiful tree whose leaves are among the top favourites with koalas.

Our local redgums are coming into bud now, and showing why they are called “tereticornis”. Terete is a word used in botany to describe things which are cylindrical or slightly tapering, and “cornis” means a horn. You can see that the bud-cap - the “calyptus” which gives Eucalyptus their name, is shaped like a straight little horn.
As the flowers mature, they will push off this cap with their many stamens, and attract many insects, including honeybees with their copious nectar.
Redgums can grow to be very big trees, with trunks up to 2m in diameter (though trees of this size would be hundreds of years old). They respond well to coppicing, which is a good way to manage them if they are being grown to be harvested for their good quality firewood.
If you see Eucalyptus overseas, they are quite likely to be this easy-to- grow species. It is a common subject for forestry plantations, grown for its heavy, red construction timber, and for firewood. It is not always appreciated, however. Like other Eucalyptus species, it has a tendency to become an environmental weed when grown away from its natural predators - and a fast-growing woody weed which can support devastating bushfires is an unwelcome immigrant.
We Australians are aware of the second reason why gumtrees are unpopular overseas. Eucalyptus’ ability to out-compete other tree species by taking the lion’s share of available water, especially in the upper layers of the soil, is familiar to us. Our native dry rainforest species are deep-rooted, so can co-exist, but tree species from our wetter rainforest have shallower roots. Like many introduced garden species, they feel the pinch if asked to share their soil with gumtrees.

While this is much-needed koala habitat tree is well worth growing, it is best kept for large properties, parks, and highway planting.

Gum-topped Box

2011-08-04T21:11:00.001-07:00

Eucalyptus moluccana
FAMILY: MYRTACEAE
I photographed this tree at Franke Scrub, Highfields, where it grows on the red soil. It is one of our faster-growing local Eucalypts, an excellent choice for owners of acreages who want to restore local native vegetation for the sake of our wildlife.
As far as Koalas are concerned, this is one of the “top three” food trees, along our part of the Great Dividing Range.

It also tends to form hollows, so offers accommodation to gliders, ringtail possums, and those local birds which need hollows for nesting.
Its late summer flowers are appreciated by beekeepers and their flocks, as well as by native bees.
As you see, this healthy tree is also carrying a good crop of mistletoe, so will also be hosting Jezabel and Azure butterfly species, providing pleasure for all those Highfields residents who have flowers to attract the adult butterflies.
For those who want to provide themselves with a carbon-neutral form of home heating, this tree is a source of top-grade firewood.

Sticky Wallaby Bush

2011-07-28T01:17:00.000-07:00

Beyeria viscosa
FAMILY: EUPHORBIACEAE

I found this plant growing in the Jack McEwan State Forest, near Pittsworth. The soil there is our typical “hillside black” - better drained than the heavy black soil of the Darling Downs plains, and very stony.
I wondered what was “sticky” about it, as it isn’t sticky to touch - but one of my companions pressed a specimen between sheets of newspaper, and apparently it stuck quite firmly!
The plants are dioecious. Flowers on the male bushes have little yellow flowers with no petals. They are pretty little balls of yellow stamens, framed by green sepals. Flowers on the female plants are nondescript, and followed by these fruits, which, at present, are interesting but not showy. I am not familiar with this plant, but I have seen a photo of the species, taken in Western Australia, with showy plum-red fruits. I plan to keep an eye on Jack Mack’s plants, to discover whether they will change colour as they mature.
Wallaby bushes are pleasantly attractive plants with silvery leaves. They are said to make a good screen in gardens, and to benefit from pruning. To fully appreciate the species, it would be necessary to have at least one male and one female plant, so planting a row of them does seem like a good idea.

Native Daisies in the Main Street

2011-07-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

Senecio pinnatifolius
FAMILY: FABACEAE

I was very surprised to see this yellow daisy growing in Ruthven Street. A local native plant in the main street of Toowoomba is a rare sight indeed!

I wondered whether it had sneaked in by itself, or whether it had been planted by someone who could see how very well it would fit into this designed garden in front of an inner-city church.

Our native yellowtops are one of the bright notes of winter, in this district.
I do think our tree-planted main street is an improvement on the “tar and cement” we used to have, but I was reflecting on how sad and bedraggled the deciduous trees looked when I spotted the daisies.
They were like a breath of honest fresh air, “representing the season” as it really is here in Toowoomba - a pleasing contrast to the “wannabe English” look of the trees.
For more on this gardenworthy local native plant, see Sep 2008

Myrtle Rust Reaches Toowoomba

2011-07-14T23:08:00.000-07:00

I saw my first case of Myrtle rust this week.
I hadn’t expected to see it in the Toowoomba area until spring. Our typically cold, dry winter would slow it down, and I thought we would be able to enjoy a brief respite before it started to spread in earnest with the warmer weather and the first summer rains.

Here it is already, however, at a friend’s place at Mt Kynoch.

It is on a malabar apple Syzigium jambos, a species which is already known to be particularly susceptible to the rust. Malabar apple has been brought to Australia from south-east Asia, and is grown for its edible fruits and its creamy powder-puff flowers. Closely related to our native lillypillies, it has become an invasive weed in some areas.
Myrtle rust is still so new to Australia (it’s only been known here for 14 months, though it may have gone undetected for a year or two before that) that we don’t know, yet, to what extent our various local native plant species will be affected. Some have already proven to be very susceptible, others less so.
One thing we do know, is that the disease is so easily spread, by insects and the wind, that it is inevitable that it will find every susceptible plant in Australia no matter what we try to do to prevent it.
Myrtle rust is restricted to members of the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). They are all trees or shrubs, so a disease which affects them has the potential to have a major impact on the Australian landscape. The likelihood is that it will make mature plants look ugly, and affect seedlings badly. A worst-case scenario is that seedlings will die en masse, and extinctions of more susceptible species will result.
Plants from this family have been very popular in gardens. The rust is going to affect the decisions we make about what we plant. We will also find ourselves deciding to remove many of them, and replace them with plants from some other family.
So far, myrtle rust has been identified on 73 Queensland species. Unfortunately there are likely to be still more species affected.
Here is a site that gives advice about what to do if you find myrtle rust in your garden.
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790_20154.htm
Don’t overlook the importance of reporting affected plants to Biosecurity Queensland on 13 25 23. They can’t prevent it or cure it, but their research will be our future guide as to what Myrtaceae are really worth planting in our gardens.
To this I would add that I believe home gardeners have a responsibility not to let their plants act as carriers which might make a bridge for the fungus to reach native bushland or commercial growers whose livelihoods are under threat.
There are some plants which I think we should remove even if they are not yet infected. I leave it to you to decide which ones, but they would obviously include any Myrtaceae that we just don’t love very much, particularly those which are still small enough to remove easily. Perhaps they should include any others of species which are already known to be very susceptible. Realistically, we have to accept that these plants’ period of beauty will end shortly, and they are certainly easier to dispose of without spreading infection if it’s done before they get it. The sooner they go, the sooner we can be planting something in their place.
There are others which we should remove as soon as they show symptoms. These certainly include the very susceptible ones. No matter how hard we fight to save them, they are always going to be reinfected. We might as well bite the bullet sooner, rather than later. It will save quite a bit of effort and money which might be put into pouring poisons into the environment to no purpose.
(Note the DPI advice on how to dispose of infected plants http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790_20154.htm )
Depressed?
So am I.
I try to cheer myself up with the thought that only 10% of Australian plants are in the Myrtaceae family. Those popular Grevilleas and other Proteaceae will be unaffected, and there are a great many garden-worthy plants from other families which have never even been tried in our gardens.
Meanwhile, some Myrtaceae may prove to be resistant. I find it reassuring that there are no Eucalyptus species on the list so far. I hope I am not being premature.

The Myrtle List

2011-07-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

Which of these are growing in your garden?
Worldwide, there are 3000 species in the Myrtaceae family. Of these, more than 2200 species are native to Australia. This is almost 10% of Australian plant species - but because they are large plants, all trees or shrubs, any disease which affects them widely could have a major impact on our landscapes.
The species are grouped into approx 70 genera. I have noted here which genera have been affected by myrtle rust in Queensland, at time of writing .

Native to Queensland:
Acmena Lillypillies AFFECTED
Acmenosperma AFFECTED
Anetholia (was Backhousia)
Angophora Applegums
Archirhodomyrtus Rose Myrtle
Asteromyrtus
Austromyrtus Including Midyim
Backhousia Including Lemon Myrtle, Curry Myrtle...
Baeckia Twiggy bush
Barongia
Callistemon The red, pink and white bottlebrushes.
Calytrix Fringe Myrtle
Choricarpia Scrub ironwood
Corymbia Gumtrees and bloodwoods
Decaspermum Silky Myrtle AFFECTED
Eucalyptus Gumtrees, Boxes, Ironbarks, Stringybarks, etc
Eugenia Lillypilly AFFECTED
Gossia Including Python tree, Thready Barked Myrtle, 'Aurora', and 'Blushing Beauty' AFFECTED
Harmogia (Also known as Babingtonia, Baeckia...)
Homalocalyx
Homoranthus Mouse and Honey Bush
Kardomia (Also known as Babingtonia, Baeckia...)
Kunzea
Lenwebbia
Leptospermum All those lovely tea trees
Lindsayomyrtus
Lithomyrtus
Lophostemon Brush box, Swamp box,
Lysicarpus Budgeroo
Melaleuca The bottlebrush tea trees and paperbarks AFFECTED
Micromyrtus Fringed Heath Myrtle
Mitrantia
Neofabricia
Ochrosperma (Was known as Baeckia)
Osbornia
Pilidiostigma Plum Myrtle AFFECTED
Rhodamnia Malletwood or “Turpentine” AFFECTED
Rhodomyrtus “Native guava”, finger cherry, rose myrtle AFFECTED
Rhistantia
Sannantha (were called Baeckia, Babingtonia...)
Sphaerantia
Syncarpia Turpentine
Syzygium Lillypilly, including riberry
Thaleropia
Thryptomene
Triplarena Heath Myrtle (Was Baeckia)
Tristaniopsis Water gum, Kanooka, includes “Luscious” and other cultivars.
Uromyrtus Includes “Weeping Beauty”
Verticordia Feather flowers
Waterhousia Includes weeping lillypilly, “Sweeper”...
Welchiodendron
Xanthostemon Penda AFFECTED

Native to other parts of Australia - a shortlist.
Popular plants in gardens include:
Agonis Willow myrtle, “After Dark” AFFECTED
Chamelauceum Geraldton Wax AFFECTED
Darwinia
Euryomyrtus Rosy Baeckia
Thryptomene
Tristania neriifolia Water Gum AFFECTED
For a full list see
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/documents/Biosecurity_MovingPlantsAndPlantProducts/Module-3-genera-in-myrtle-rust.pdf
Myrtle rust has not been found in Tasmania. Let’s be very careful about not taking it there. In the worst -case scenario, it could become the only place where some of our now-common Australian plants survive in the wild!

Native to other parts of the World - a shortlist.
Here are some foreign Myrtaceae which are seen in Australian gardens.
Eugenia Brazilian cherry, Surinam cherry
Psidium All guavas AFFECTED
Syzygium jambos AFFECTED
Metrosideros New Zealand Christmas Tree AFFECTED

See http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790_19789.htm for details on all Myrtaceae species affected so far in Australia, including information on which are the most highly susceptible.

Native Geranium

2011-07-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Geranium solanderi
FAMILY: GERANIACEAE
This little native wildflower is very common on our local red soil. While its best display of flowers occurs in spring and summer, this plant was flowering last week on Mt Peel.
It grows from a perennial taproot, and looks its best in a garden situation if it is cut back once a year and allowed to regrow. I usually do this in winter. The plants get straggly, particularly after frost.
The taproot is said to be edible, if roasted.

Hollows

2011-07-07T22:08:00.000-07:00

I photographed these two young galahs last weekend, in Nielsen Park in Toowoomba. They were being supervised by two other galahs, probably their parents, as they cautiously made their way out of the family nest.
Neilsen Park is a bit of old-growth forest in the middle of suburbia, and what a valuable place it is.
Not many of us would like to have a Eucalyptus of this size in our backyards, so not many of us can offer nursery accommodation to galahs, or to any of the other 17% of Australian bird species which depend on hollows for nesting. Thanks to the park, the residents in surrounding suburbs can enjoy the advantages of having these birds in their gardens.

I understand that we owe the existence of this park to a Toowoomba family, which gifted it to the city. What a wonderful legacy!
Several years ago it was the subject of intensive weed removal by a volunteer group, the Friends of the Escarpment Parks. To them we owe the healthy regrowth of native shrubs and trees which were able to get established as the weeds reduced.
Weedy regrowth is becoming evident, though, and further work is needed. There just aren’t enough volunteers to go round.

Wombat Berry

2011-06-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

Eustrephus latifolius
FAMILY: LAXMANNIACEAE

I suppose wombats (in those parts of Australia where wombats live) must eat the tubers of this plant. People can eat them too, and they are said to be sweet and delicious. If you want to try, you’ll need a good digging stick, as they might be half a metre underground.

You can also eat the crisp white arils which partially surround the seeds. There’s not much of them, so they are hardly worth the trouble - but if you are desperate for fruit, it’s there!

Each fruit has developed from a summer flower which looked like this - three pale pink sepals, and three fluffy white petals.

The plants are fruiting beautifully all around the district at present. They do it each year, but our summer of rain has given them an extra healthy glow. When they have finished, the plants will die back for the winter. These light climbers are suitable for garden use, but are best cut back to the ground each winter, and allowed to regrow in spring. They are also suitable as pot plants for porches and balconies. They grow in heavy shade, so can even be used indoors (but don’t expect flowers or fruit in that situation).

Here is a closer look at their leaves. Note that they have no stems, and no obvious mid-vein on the upper surface, though on some plants you can distinguish one on the underside.

This helps to distinguish them from a similar-looking local plant, the scrambling lily Geitonoplesium cymosum. In both plants, the leaves vary a good deal in size and shape, being bigger in damper climates and smaller in the dry places west of the Great Dividing Range.

The scrambling, lily, however, has a short but obvious little stalk to its leaves. If you look closely you can see that it is twisted. And it has an upstanding central vein on the upper side of the leaf.

Its spring flowers are pure white, and lack the little beards on the their petals which distinguish the wombat berry flowers.

Red Leaves

2011-06-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

There are all kinds of tastes, of course, and there are Toowoomba people who love their deciduous trees. I also enjoy their brief autumn blaze of glory. It is very brief, however. In our climate there are some years when the period of autumn leaf beauty is little more than a fortnight long.
Then, for a third of the year, gardens which are otherwise full of life contain what look like dead trees. I'm not sure that these trees really earn their place in a local garden.

Here’s a photo I took this morning, on a typical Toowoomba winter’s day. The orange berries are on locally native golden hollywood trees, Auranticarpa rhombifolia (FAMILY: PITTOSPORACEAE)
Deciduous trees have their practical uses, of course, in that they let in the winter sunshine. So there is a point in growing them where their shade might be just too gloomy in winter.

Otherwise, I’d rather have a tree like this Elattostachys xylocarpa (FAMILY SAPINDACEAE) in my garden. This is what its foliage looks like this week. You can see why it’s called beetroot tree!

See April 2008 for a photo of its lovely seed capsules.

Purple and Gold

2011-06-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Hardenbergia violacea

Growing in the bush with the golden-flowered wattles featured in last week’s article, are plenty of these little plants. They go by the name of purple wanderer, though people more often call them by their botanical name - Hardenbergia - these days.

They just can’t wait for spring! They start flowering in June, and may be still at it in October.
This little one is wandering up through a dogwood, Jacksonia scoparia, and may be still flowering when it puts out masses of its own, similar-sized bright yellow pea-flowers in September.
See August 2008 for more on the Hardenbergia.

Still my Favourite Winter Flowers

2011-06-16T22:49:00.001-07:00

Acacia podalyriifolia
FAMILY: MIMOSACEAE
I always feel gloomy as the day length creeps toward the shortest day of the year.

So I enjoy the cheery optimism of this, one of our best local wattles. It is sometimes called “Mt. Morgan wattle”, but its range is wider than that, so its other name is Queensland silver wattle.

I photographed this lovely specimen in a Warwick garden last weekend. Isn’t it splendid?

This particular one may not be kept for much longer, as older plants tend to get scruffy. New ones take two years to flower from seed, so it’s as well to always have a new one coming on, ready to replace the old. Mature plants like this will often produce a few seedlings, without the gardener having to make any effort at all. The healthiest plants are those which come up of their own accord, so it’s worth saving a well-placed one.
The seedlings are rather fun, as they begin by having true leaves - fine ferny ones - but soon let their “false leaves” take over. What you see on a mature tree are not really leaves. They are phyllodes - leaf-stalks which have widened and flattened. They don’t lose water the way true leaves do, so they help to drought-proof the plant.
See June 5, 2009, for more on this plant.

Small-fruited Mock Olive

2011-06-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

Notelaea microcarpa
FAMILY: OLEACEAE

The mock-olives are fruiting heavily this year. I photographed this one in Rosenthal Scrub in Warwick last weekend.

It is a common plant on the Darling Downs, growing naturally on rocky ridges, where it is typically 3 or 4 metres high.
The species adapts well to all kinds of soils, and is a useful little drought and frost hardy tree for use in gardens. If pruned, it tends to sucker from the base, demonstrating that it would be happy to be made into a hedge. Left alone, it grows into a crooked little tree, often multi-trunked, and with a shady, rounded canopy. It has the capacity to be as picturesque as an old Mediterranean olive tree. Our local is related to the edible olive, but I have never heard that people eat these little fruits. They are popular with birds, however.
Its name tells its story. The second half of its generic name, “elaea” is Greek for “olive”. The first bit comes from “notos” meaning “south”. “Micro” means “small”, and “carpa” refers to its fruit.

Note the raised veins on the upper surface of the leaf, a characteristic which distinguishes it from the other Notelaea species which grow on the Downs.
(Double click on the photo for a close look.)

Almost Ripe

2011-06-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Diplocyclos palmatus
FAMILY:CUCURBITACEAE

These little native cucumbers were ripening out at Irongate Conservation Reserve, when I took this photo the weekend before last. If you want to see the bright red fruits in their full beauty, the coming few weeks will be a good time to go for a look.

This particular plant was a magnificent one, growing four metres high, and laden with fruit. It is just beside the path, so is easy to find.

Please remember that these cucumbers are ornamentals, not suitable for eating. They’d make you sick if you were so silly as to try them!!
For more about the species, see April 2008.
To get to Irongate Conservation Reserve:
Go to Mt Tyson, and head west out the main street. Near the property called Adora Downs the road makes a right-angled turn to the left (south). Follow this until it hits a T-intersection. Turn left, and in about 200 metres you see the Irongate Hall on the left. Turn right (south) almost immediately after that, and follow the road (which makes a bend to the left) for something like 3.5k until you come across the reserve on your right. Keep your eye out for the iron gate that marks the place.

Winter Blues

2011-06-04T01:19:00.000-07:00

Hovea longipes
FAMILY: FABACEAE
The brush hoveas at Irongate are really showing what they can do, this year. They have obviously appreciated the extra watering they got in January.

This is an unusual hovea species, and not just in its colour which is more blue than the typical hovea purple.
It is also different in that it flowers earlier in winter, filling that difficult niche when flowers can be harder to find. To judge by the old appearance of the plants at Irongate, I think the species may be much longer-lived than is usual with hoveas. Botanists find other differences, and this is one of those plants which we may yet see reorganised into a new name.
I would love to grow this one at home, but have never had any success in finding viable seed.
It is a sturdy, woody shrub - very happy on on the stony black soils of Darling Downs slopes. It is said to be able to grow to 5m high, though I've never seen it at more than 2. I imagine it could easily be kept to garden-size by pruning.
Its name, “longipes” refers to the length of the pedicel, or flower-stalk.

2011-05-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

Sold Out

I have just mailed out the last copy of my book, so it is now out of print.

I do intend putting out a second edition, but don’t expect to have it done until next year.
Meanwhile, it is available from the Toowoomba City Library (Call No 581.9)
And I am working away at Vol 2, which will be about local native plants other than trees and shrubs. Look for it later this year.

Flindersia in Fruit

2011-05-26T19:12:00.001-07:00

Flindersia australis

The crows ashes all around the district are laden with fruits this year. (Double click the photo for an enlarged view of them.)

At present the capsules are unopened...

but we can expect to see them turn into these pretty woody starfishes.
This one (one of last year’s crop) has already emptied itself it its seeds.

There will be plenty of seed this year, for those who’d like to grow their own. Keep an eye on your favourite crows ash tree so you can be there when the seeds are ripe.
For more on this stately local tree, See June 2005

Kurrajong - The Perfect Shade Tree

2011-05-05T17:53:00.000-07:00

Brachychiton populneus
Kurrajongs are dry rainforest trees which take the “dry” more literally than most. We see them far out on the western plans, as in this specimen in a Western Downs town which is doing such a good job of shading a cool Queensland-style house.

Their deep roots help them survive droughts. Deep roots also mean (as with other dry rainforest trees) they are less likely to create problems for buildings and other structures. However the roots do seek water, so should not be planted closer than 3.5m to water pipes or sewage lines.

Another part of the secret of kurrajongs’ drought survival is the capacity to drop their leaves in dry winters. The degree of leaf drop depends heavily on the availability of soil moisture, so in wet winters they may lose very few of them. This photo was taken near Toowoomba in June 2008, which was probably the driest of all the dry times in our recent long drought.

The species can grow tall, as shown in this bushland example, also near Toowoomba. Usually, rainforest species only grow this shape if surrounded by other trees. It is possible that this very old tree spent its youth in a quite different environment from the grassy eucalypt woodland you can see in this modern photo. A great deal of such country, along the Great Dividing Range and the valleys to the west of it, was once dry rainforest. It was cleared so long ago that we have forgotten it was ever there. The shape of this tree may indicate that this was the case here.

Kurrajongs have a very pretty flower, and unlike some of the other Brachychiton species (notably the flame tree Brachychiton acerifolius), they don’t link flowering with leaflessness.
This photo was taken in October, and the tree had a shady green canopy.
While mature trees can put out a great show of flowers, it won’t happen every year, so the kurrajong’s ornamental qualities are largely based on its cool green canopy.

As with many Australian trees, their juvenile leaves differ from the leaves on older trees. These leaves are from a very young tree.

The shape on the right is the one we most commonly see, while the one on the left only occurs on mature trees.

I photographed this paddock of kurrajongs at Gilgandra. They were neatly pruned, and I wondered why. Then we drove on to visit the Dubbo Western Plains Zoo, where we watched giraffes being fed with kurrajong leaves. No doubt this explained the mystery!

The photo is such a good demonstration of the results that we can get from pruning most of our dry rainforest tree species. You can see how well these Australian native trees would grace a formal garden. They can be kept to a size suitable for the suburbs, and make very good street trees, as seen in Goondiwindi.

This young kurrajong in Crows Nest is being groomed for the job.

Pastoralists have long recognised the value of kurrajong leaves as emergency drought fodder for their stock. Unfortunately they have all too often solved their problem by cutting down whole trees, a curiously short-sighted solution. The result is that, while we see many young trees in the Toowoomba district, large, old ones are rare.

Kurrajongs are host trees for one of our larger butterflies, the tailed emperor (Polyura pyrrhus sempronius). We caught this delightful pair “kissing” in the bushes at Kwiambul National Park last weekend. (Butterflies kiss with their antennae.)

Brachychitons are recognised as being fire resistant. A row of them on a fenceline downhill from the house, in bushfire-prone areas, could make all the difference (though of course no tree will resist a very large bushfire). A green canopy catches sparks, and might just be the factor that saves a house from catching alight.
A “home among the kurrajongs” is a very Australian image, and considerably safer than the one among the gum trees which is celebrated in the well-known song.
Kurrajongs can be transplanted at up to 8 years old.

Native Germander

2011-04-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

Teucrium argutum
This little member of the mint family is a perfect Australian native cottage garden plant.
Traditional English cottage gardens contained a mixture of vegetables, herbs, flowering annuals and “herbaceous perennials”.
“Herbaceous” means that they appear to die at the end of summer, but the roots remain alive and well, ready to put up new growth in spring. As time went by, the perennials have become the mainstay of this ornamental gardening style, and maintenance of a typical cottage garden involves a tidy-up in autumn, where dead material is cut away, and roots divided and excess bits discarded (or given to friends).

Despite its family connections, which are apparent in the leaf and flower shapes, and in the square stems, our native germander does not have aromatic leaves. Its flowers are somewhat showier than those of the garlic-scented European germander Teucrium chamaedrys, a cottage garden favourite in northern hemisphere countries.

Like that plant, it could be used for edging, or decorative effects such as knot gardens.
It also looks good in bush-style gardens, creeping around among shrubs, between rushes and grasses. Its roots help with slope maintenance.
As with all our local natives, it is somewhat drought hardy, though it does appreciate
some moisture in its root zone, especially if grown in full sun. For this reason, it thrives best if mulched.
The little flowers attract butterflies and other insects.

A Different Kettle of Snails

2011-04-09T18:55:00.001-07:00

Did you know that there are some 2500 native snail species in Australia? And that none of them eat plants?
I spent a bit of time last weekend with the Toowoomba Field naturalists and Dr John Stanisic of the Queensland Museum, (who is Australia’s foremost expert on native snails), learning that everything I thought I knew about snails was very little and rather boring, compared to what there is to know.
The nub of it, though, was how important the natives are to the health of plants in our rainforests and brigalow scrubs.
They live on leaves, but don’t eat them. Instead, they eat the algae and fungi which grow in an almost invisible layer on the leaves, making a nuisance of themselves by blocking the plant’s pores.

The one in the photo above is a kind of snail called a semi-slug, which, as you can see, has just a rather miserable excuse for a shell. Semi-slugs live in rainforests, where the soil is low in calcium. Calcium is an essential ingredient in shells, so ditching the shell seems to be an obvious evolutionary response to scarcity of this basic ingredient.
Other native snails live in leaf litter and decomposing logs, where they are part of the all-important decomposition process that keeps the rainforests healthy.
We sometimes find these “snails” in our garden.
(Slugs, I learned , are regarded by snail specialists as just another kind of snail.)

Red triangle slugs live on the algae on trunks of trees and rocks - though I once heard of an enterprising person who introduced them to his bathroom, where they apparently kept the shower alcove clean. The red triangle on their backs marks the place which once, in evolutionary terms, a shell was attached. Note the “pneumostome” - the little breathing hole.
We also find these fellows in our garden. They are not natives, and are just one of the 60 or so species that have been introduced to Australia since white settlement.
I learned last weekend that they are edible, and known in the restaurant trade as “petit gris”. Now if we could all eat our pest snails (recipes tend to allow 12-20 per person for a meal), a major garden problem would be solved. What a pity I lack the courage. Have any of my readers tried them?
Native snails are rare in gardens, as they really need a healthy native ecosystem, full of microscopic algae, fungi, leaf litter, and so on, to survive.
It would be a gardening triumph to establish a garden which was able to support them, as does a carefully nurtured corner of the Boyce garden (corner Mackenzie and Range Streets Toowoomba). In the early part of last century, Dr and Mrs Boyce bought a block of land which contained a very heavily damaged rainforest remnant - the last existing remnant in suburban Toowoomba. They cared for the existing plants, carefully tended any natives which grew from existing seed in the soil, and did a little supplementary planting. Apparently the snails are an “indicator” of the health of an ecosystem, and the number and variety of snails now present in the Boyce garden tells us that it’s ecology is in good shape.

(These native snails were put on a leaf in the sun for the photo, and carefully returned to their damp and shady homes afterwards.)

Many modern gardeners are working hard on little patches of remnant land, clearing weeds, carefully protecting natural regrowth, and replanting local native species to restore the original environment. When they start finding native snails, they will know they have succeeded.

Butterfly Battle

2011-04-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

To us, life, for butterflies, seems rather stress-free and idyllic, especially for those species which are bird-proof by virtue of their nasty taste. In reality it’s nothing of the sort.
Yesterday I watched these two having a territorial dispute, at Lake Broadwater (near Dalby).
The upper one, a native wanderer (Danaus chrysippus) had a good piece of territory, on a gargaloo Parsonsia eucalyptophylla high in the treetops. Gargaloos are host plants of very high value to a number of species of butterfly in the danaid group, so the possession of one puts a male butterfly in a prestigious position. It’s a good move, when it comes to meeting girls, to be able to offer them a creche of such high status.
Then along came the crow butterfly (Euploea core) and tried his level best to take over and drive the wanderer out.
He wasn’t having any success at all. The wanderer refused to budge, despite prolonged and determined campaign harassment by the interloper.
It does remind us that butterflies, like every other animal in the wild, have to cope with competition and aggression from members of their own and other species.

Piccabeen Flowers

2011-04-01T00:05:00.001-07:00

Archontophoenix cunninghamiana
I am delighted that my Piccabeen is flowering at last.
I planted in it 1988, so it’s taken 23 years to reach this level of maturity. It’s had a hard life, in rather unforgiving dry soil. I imagine that a plant which had been better cared-for, with rich soil, water, and mulch, would have got to this point considerably sooner.
Each of the two spikes unwrapped itself, like a birthday present, from a spathe which was only revealed when an old leaf fell off the plant. Prior to that, it had been just a little pregnant bulge under the leaf’s petiole.

The flower spikes are pearly white (and gleam in the moonlight), and you can see how lovely the little purple buds and flowers look against the stem colour.

The buds open a few at a time, so the first spike, which appeared about six weeks ago, still has a lot of buds on it.

I am now hoping the flowers will be followed by a showy display of orange fruits.

A New Place to buy Native Plants

2011-03-25T17:11:00.000-07:00

Peacehaven Botanic Park in Kuhls Road, Highfields, has a little nursery, run by volunteers. Up until now it has opened on Thursday mornings only. It is operated by the Friends of Peacehaven, and raises funds for this exciting new Botanic Garden venture.
Beginning next week 2nd April 2011, it will also be open on Saturday mornings.
At present it is crammed full of plants at the bargain prices of $2.50 and $3.00 thanks to the donation, by Toowoomba Regional Council, of leftovers from the Free Tree Giveaway. Some of the plants are rarely if ever available in ordinary nurseries. One of them is the yellow ash (see article below), an excellent small shade tree for gardens.
So hop in, for bargains!

Yellow Ash

2011-03-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

Emmenosperma alphitonioides
The best photo I can manage, of this uncommon rainforest tree, is the of the plant I took away from the Toowoomba Regional Council’s annual free tree day, in exchange for the voucher which came with my rates notice.
You can see that it gets its common name from the yellowish look of these healthy, shiny leaves.
In our district, we see it as an uncommon tree in rainforests - difficult to photograph. I have never seen it in a garden, though I believe it is grown in some botanic gardens, where it has been established that it is fast-growing, and becomes a medium-sized tree, with a very dense, shady canopy.
From my little tree, I can expect a striking display of creamy-white flowers, followed by a generously sprinkle of long-lasting little orange-yellow fruits. The seed-coats eventually split and fall away, leaving the bright red seeds on the tree - as also happens with its much more common relative, the soap ash Alphitonia excelsa. Also like that tree, the stems become beautifully lichen-covered from an early age.
The seeds are a popular food source for fruit-eating birds.
I have only seen full-grown specimens in the rainforest at Ravensbourne, but am told that if grown in the open, this is an ornamental feature tree, neatly pyramid-shaped, and suitable for use in formal gardens because of its predictable shape.
If grown from cuttings, it becomes a multi-trunked screening shrub, showing off its flowers and fruits at face-level
Large specimens of the trees are rare. They have high quality timber - heavy, and bone coloured (which is why it is also called “bonewood”), so were ruthlessly cut out in the early days of the timber industry.
The seeds have a reputation for being difficult to germinate, so I am impressed at the success that excellent nurseryman Steve Plant has had, with these trees which came from the Crows Nest Community Nursery.
Apparently the seeds grow best if they have dried on the tree and split naturally - a hint for those who wish to try germinating seed themselves.
At present, these plants are available at the Peacehaven Nursery. If you’re quick you may be able to get one.

Russet Mistletoe

2011-03-17T22:35:00.001-07:00

Amyema miquellii

March is flowering time for one of our most spectacular and best-known local mistletoes.
The russet mistletoe is often seen on its host trees - always Eucalyptus species - on our roadsides. It can be a magnificent plant, 2 metres tall.
As you can see, it flowers generously.

The petals are creamy-pink, but it is the red stamens which attract our attention.
Notice how the flowers are borne in neatly geometrical “triads”.

They will be followed by fruits which ripen in late winter. They may remain green when they’re ripe, or may turn pale cream.
Like all fruits of the Loranthaceae family of mistletoes, they are edible and tasty. Don’t be put off by their common name, which is “snottygobble”! To eat them, you squeeze them out of the skin into your mouth, trying not to touch the very sticky flesh.

These plants have a second spectacular phase in winter and spring, when their leaves can turn bright red. The effect is stunning when it grows on gums with blue-green foliage such as the silver-leaved ironbark Eucalyptus melanophloia.

I have recently been told that people who like to dye wool and fabric with Australian native plant material value this plant as a source of red dye.
Mistletoes cope well with pruning, so there is no need to destroy any plants while collecting material for the purpose.

This species grows on minor branches of its host, taking over the branch completely, without harming the tree as a whole.

Slender Water Vine

2011-03-11T22:06:00.000-08:00

Cayratia clematidea
Some people dislike this little climber, considering it “weedy”.
I’m fond of it, myself.
Slender water vines are chaotic plants with a tendency to spread at will through the garden. They grow very fast, in spring, creating the impression that they will smother everything in sight - but they never fulfil the promise. The growth slows right down as soon as they begin flowering in summer - which happens when the stems are 2-3 metres long. The plants trail through the foliage of other plants, ornamenting them with these pretty leaves. The flowers are tiny and white, but add to the lacy appearance of this delicate-looking plant. They are followed by bird-attracting black fruits.
In autumn the above-ground parts of the vine die, and are easily pulled off their supporting plants by hand. Under the ground, they survive as tennis-ball sized tubers, to regrow in spring.
The brown tubers are edible, as are the tiny fruits, though neither has much flavour. The tubers were traditionally prepared by beating and roasting.
A very good reason for growing these plants is that they are the favourite host plant of the Joseph’s coat moth. This stunningly beautiful day-flying insect is often mistaken for a butterfly, as it is brightly coloured - black with red, yellow, and light blue markings, and the plant would be an appropriate inclusion in a garden designed to attract butterflies.
This female is probably laying eggs on this plant, which , as you can see from the poor state of its health, must have been treated with glyphosate, so if she did indeed leave eggs there they are doomed.

Slug Herb

2011-03-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

Aneilema acuminatum
What dreadful common names have been given to some of our native plants!
This dainty local plant is a relative of the wandering jew (Tradescantia species). Unlike that plant, which has become a serious environmental weed, this is an inoffensive little thing, common in our local rainforests, and useful for an authentic touch in a rainforest garden.
Each of the flower heads, on delicate foot-high upright stems, can produce several dozen little white three-petalled flowers, of which only one or two open at a time.
We usually see it as an understorey plant, wandering through the mulch of rainforests, never growing strongly enough to crowd out other plants. It flowers in dense shade, the white flowers gleaming in the shadows, and this would probably be the best garden use for it. However it can be grown in places where it receives full sun for part of the day, provided it is well-mulched and receives adequate water. In that situation, the leaves form a dense summer groundcover. They are knocked back by frost, but mulch protects the roots, so the plant recovers as soon as warmer weather comes around.
Like all our dry rainforest plants, it is drought hardy. If grown on Toowoomba redsoil, the natural rainfall (or lack of it) is enough to keep it flourishing.
It is said to be a magnet for snails and slugs, which is a good reason not to waste water on it, as these pests thrive best where foliage is wet.

What is this Butterfly Doing?

2011-03-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

I was puzzled by the behaviour of this, and several other blue tigers, which were hovering around a Gargaloo Parsonsia eucalyptophylla vine. They were landing on the leaves and young stems, and poking out their little proboscises, apparently tasting the plant. They pumped their wings rhythmically, from fully open to fully shut, while they were doing it, and were so busy concentrating on this obviously important activity, that this one let me come withing a foot of it to take his photo. You can see that he is interested in the leaf’s central vein. (It is a “he”. You can clearly see a raised black patch on his hindwings, that marks him as male.)
Not knowing what he was doing, I asked a question on the “Bring Back Our Butterflies” website, and found that he is getting perfumed up, before going out to meet girls.
Apparently he is extracting a chemical (possible a pyrolizidine alkaloid). This is the butterfly equivalent of Aerogard - it keeps the birds away - so replenishing the store, already in their bodies as a result of their infant diet, helps keep them safe while they go out courting.
However the reason that males spend more time at this activity than females do is that the chemical is used to make a pheromone which is excreted by “hairpencil” glands on their abdomens. In the courting process they apply it to the antennae of females, thus attracting their attention to the availability of an eligible bachelor.
I find it interesting that blue tigers use Parsonsia eucalyptophylla for this purpose, even though they are only known to breed on Secamone elliptica in our area. I’ll have to keep watch for caterpillars, to see whether the vine is actually a breeding site as well.
The website I mentioned above is managed by Frank Jordan, and is a great place of find information and ask questions about butterflies.
http://bringbackourbutterflies.ning.com

Myrtle Rust

2011-03-04T17:55:00.000-08:00

There’s a nasty new plant disease, with depressing implications for the future of Australian vegetation, that we should all know about - and report if we ever see it here.
It begins as purple spots on leaves, which develop into bright yellow, powdery pimples, and deforms all the affected parts of the plant, stunting it, and possibly killing it. (An internet search will show you photos.)
Myrtle rust is caused by the fungus Uredo rangelii. It was first found in Australia in Gosford NSW, in April 2010, whence it has spread rapidly to other states. It was first found in Queensland in Dec 2010 and has now travelled as far as Cairns. It is carried by the wind, insects and other animals, and of course by people who buy, sell, and transport plants. Even your shoes, clothes, packaging material, and so on, can transport it.
It is native to South America, but also exists in North America and Hawaii. We may never know how it got here, but it is very infectious, so could have hitch-hiked on anything or anyone coming from any of those places.
It seems to only affect plants in the myrtle family MYRTACEAE. Unfortunately, the most iconic Australian plants are in that family. This is a disease with the potential to transform beautiful landscapes into ugliness, and its economic impact is likely to be considerable.
Where would we be without gum trees, ironbarks, stringybarks, applegums, brush box, turpentines, bottlebrushes, teatrees, lillypillies, lemon myrtles, golden pendas... ?
The list of exotics that are also susceptible is long as well. (It includes New Zealand Christmas Trees, and guavas.)
For a full list of plants known to have been affected, see http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790_19789.htm
For the potential total list, see
http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/documents/Biosecurity_GeneralPlantHealthPestsDiseaseAndWeeds/Myrtaceae-genera.pdf
If you suspect Myrtle Rust on your property, in the bush, or in a park, garden, or nursery, please notify Biosecurity Queensland on 13 25 23 or call the Exotic Plant Pest Hotline on 1800 084 881.
For further information and printable documents to help identify the disease visit Biosecurity Queensland at: http://www.dpi.qld.gov.au/4790.htm

Blue Argus

2011-03-04T15:46:00.000-08:00

We were surprised and delighted to find this butterfly at our place, as we hadn’t known that it could occur in this district.
It’s a blue argus (Junonia orithya albicincta).
You can see its resemblance to the more common meadow argus, in the February article on the plant “pink tongues” Rostellularia adscendans.
However, its behaviour is quite different. This one was very shy indeed, and quite hard for the camera to catch.

Its local host plants are shared with the meadow argus - a group of dainty little plants, all with pretty flowers, that grow naturally among grasses.
They include:
Blue Trumpet, Brunoniella australis
Love Flower, Pseuderanthemum variabile
and Pink Tongues, Rostellularia adscendans.
The meadow argus also uses Goodenia, Scaevola, Portulaca and Verbena species, which may explain why it is more common than the blue argus.
Blue argus may also breed on Pretty Pants, Hypoestes floribunda (see June 2009)

The Root Blade - a Useful New Tool

2011-02-25T16:37:00.000-08:00

You might have caught Toowoomba’s own Euan McLean when he appeared on the TV show, “The Inventors” in November 2005, with this wonderful gadget whose practicality is immediately obvious to all of us who get involved in clearing the weeds out of native bushland.
It is very sturdily built, and designed so that the force of a good push with the foot is concentrated in a small area, making it possible for even those of us who are not very strong to do an effective job.

This young friend of his made short work of that lantana root!

Euan tells me that he has sold 200 hundred of them since appearing on the show.
Now he has been nominated for an Australian Design Award - so best of luck, Euan.
Meanwhile anyone who’d like to inquire about buying one can contact him at naued@netspace.net.au

Feeding the Chooks

2011-02-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

Ian Simons from Helidon has spent some years doing interesting research on perennial plants as food sources for free-range chickens.
He has tested the popularity among his flock, of the seeds and fruits of various plants, both native and exotic, and his results might interest those of you who would like to plant local natives where your chooks roam.
Ian’s birds “ate avidly” the seeds of our local wattle species the “Brisbane” wattle Acacia fimbriata, and the Queensland Silver wattle A. podalyriifolia.

They were equally enthusiastic about the fruits of our local trees, the soap ash Alphitonia excelsa, (left), scrub tuckeroo Cupaniopsis parvifolia (below), and the shrub native indigo Indigofera australis.

The spring fruits of the ruby saltbush Enchylaena tomentosa (below) were very popular with “the girls”,

as were the summer ones of kangaroo apple Solanum aviculare, and the autumn ones of sweet Jasmine jasminum suavissimum.

They also loved the summer fruits of the large, thorny scrambler, cockspur thorn Maclura cochinchinensis (at left).

This is not a plant that many would choose to put in their gardens, but if you already have some, especially those heavily fruiting plants which can climb high into a tree canopy, you might consider retaining them for the sake of the poultry. Don’t forget that you will need at least one male plant to keep the females fruiting.
Ian's work is ongoing, so we may hear of other interesting results in the future. You might like to read his research
at http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd21/7/simo21105.htm
and http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd21/10/simo21170.htm
Meanwhile, other friends report that their chooks love the fruits of their little whalebone trees Streblus brunonianus so much that they will stretch their necks and jump to reach them. This is another plant that needs a male to keep the females producing fruits.
Do any readers have other reports of native plants that are poultry favourites?

2011-02-24T18:56:00.000-08:00

Plant Sale
An opportunity to get hold of wide range of local native plants.
Crows Nest
Saturday 5 March
Crows Nest Community Nursery is having an open day to coincide with the Free Tree Giveaway at Crows Nest.
Don’t get the two confused!
The Free Tree Giveaway is at the Council Depot which is NOT in Depot Road. (Bring the voucher that came with your Toowoomba Regional Council rate notice to be eligible for your two free plants.)
The Crows Nest Community Nursery is in Depot Road. (You have to pay for the plants you get there! But they’re not expensive. Prices start at $2.50, which is the cost of the majority of plants.)
So it will be a great day to go to Crows Nest for plants.

Pretty Pink Tongues

2011-02-17T23:09:00.000-08:00

Rostellularia adscendens
Natural grasslands don’t just grow grass. They can be very rich environments. Besides containing a mixture of grasses (typically about six) they also contain dozens of small herb species, lilies, sedges, saltbushes, and so on.
This little herb is very common in our local grasslands. It has never been considered showy enough to attract the attention of gardeners, which is a pity. Besides being sweetly pretty, it is a host plant for the Meadow Argus butterfly (Junonia villida).
There are two local varieties. The one at left is an upright plant with narrower, shinier leaves (var adscendens). I photographed it west of Hampton.

On the top of the range in the snuffy red soil we find this one, a softer plant with broader, hairier leaves (var latifolia).

Pink tongues could be grown in a flower garden, but can also be naturalised in the mulch of a shrubbery.

It, and the other little grassland herbs many of which have equally delightful and dainty little flowers, are good reasons for not overdoing the lawn-mowing, particularly in “acreage” residential areas.

The butterflies will thank us for it, too.

Green-banded Blue Butterfly

2011-02-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

Danis hymetis

This little fellow must have been just desperate for a drink. It landed on my finger, when I was rather hot and sweaty from bushwalking, and as you can see, it has its little tongue out and is doing its best!

It seemed at first to be attracted by the bright-coloured shirt worn by one of my companions, but then settled for a finger, and was happy to be passed from hand to hand.
There are a lot of these little butterflies about at the moment, anywhere that their host plants, the Soap Trees Alphitonia excelsa grow.
For more on this useful butterfly host tree, see Jan 2009

No-fuss Bunya Nut Cookery

2011-02-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

Araucaria bidwillii
It’s the Season again, so keep an eye out for roadside stalls selling the cones.
We bought this one at Blackbutt last weekend. The sellers saw us coming 0 and immediately changed the price - from $2.00 to $1.00! The people were tired of tending the stand, and just wanted to get rid of the 60-cone yield of their tree. This classic Australian food is ridiculously under-valued!

This cone was 24cm long, 18cm in diameter, and weighed 3.5kg - a larger and heavier item than your head.
It contained 56 nuts.

Cones can be even larger than this, with up to 80 nuts. Under a bunya tree is not a good place to loiter, in the season. Neither is it a suitable place to park your car!
To gather the nuts, it is most usual, these days, to wait till the cone starts to fall to pieces. Fresh-fallen cones can be jemmied apart, however - and Aborigines used to climb the trees to collect unripe cones, whose tender young nuts are said to be an outstanding delicacy - sweet and creamy.
Aborigines also ate old nuts. They would to bury them (in their shells, in string bags) in the mud of creeks, to preserve them for later eating. They would dig them up again once they had sprouted. As with all sprouting seeds, this increases their vitamin content. Bunya seeds treated this way also developed a very offensive smell, which was passed onto everything that touched them - but were considered to be a gourmet treat. All who enjoy garlic will sympathise with those who considered that the subsequent bad breath was worth the taste sensation.
Modern cooks, however, might prefer to preserve their bunya nuts in the fridge This is said to sweeten the flavour, as also happened with the buried nuts, but presumably doesn’t let them develop their full odour. Lovers of blue-veined cheese might like to try the burying option!
The nuts can also be frozen.
According to Wikipedia, their nutritional content is: 40% water, 40% complex carbohydrates, 9% protein, 2% fat, 0.2% potassium, 0.06% magnesium. They are gluten free. They have a healthy glycaemic index (GI) rating , variously measured at 50 - 75. By contrast, other tree nuts have 50-75% fat and under 20%carbohydrates. Bunya nuts have more in common with cereals than with other nuts.
The traditional “whitefella” way to cook bunya nuts is to boil them for 30 minutes in their shells, in salted water, having first cut or slit the shell, so it won’t explode. Some would add salt to the water - and boiling them with bacon bones is a particularly delicious alternative.
The boiled shells are tough and fibrous. They are easier to peel than raw nuts, but not much. Long-nosed pliers, washed to kitchen-clean standards, are a useful tool.
Modern cooks have since invented may more complex, interesting and exciting ways of opening and cooking them, using such tools as secateurs, microwaves, blenders, bread knives, machetes, wooden blocks and a need for leather gloves. See the internet for a multiplicity of methods.
However, for those (like me) who just want to cook the things and eat them in various delicious ways without making heavy weather of the whole procedure, the old way is still the best.

So, you’ve got hold of a Bunya Cone.
What do you do?

Take care. Those prickly points are sharp!

The easiest way to get the nuts out is to wait until the cone starts to break up of its own accord.

Then you free them from their husks. A sharp knife helps you peel them back from the tip.

While they are still a bit damp from the cone (or have been saved in a plastic bag in the fridge, so they won’t dry out), you hold them with one hand and tap them with a hammer to split the tips open.

This is best done outdoors on bricks or some such, and done rather scientifically so as not to damage the kernel. You’ll notice that the nutshells have a seam down each side, and this is where you should hit. All that’s needed is a gentle tap, to produce a tiny split at the point.

Then roast them for 30 minutes. An oven at 200° Celsius does the trick, but I imagine it would also work well as a campfire activity.
You’ll notice that the splits in the shell increase as the nuts cook.

Give them five minutes to cool. (The now-crisp shell cools fast, the kernel only slowly.) Then hit them gently with a hammer again, concentrating on those side-seams.
Once you have the knack, which doesn’t take long to acquire, you’ll find the shell falls open into its two parts, and the nut can be lifted out whole.

You can eat it at once. It has a mild, slightly nutty flavour and a waxy-floury texture.
You can also subject it to a great variety of culinary processes - marinating, cooking in soup, or serving with a sauce or a dip are my favourites.
Many of our early settlers had a horror of eating anything their European forebears hadn’t brought to Australia with them, so tended to undervalue this useful and tasty food. They even invented the myth that the little green shoot within the nut is poisonous. In reality, it is just as edible as the rest of the nut, and only adds to its nutritional value.

Growing Bunya Trees for Nuts.

Fresh seed germinates easily if kept damp. The plants grow best if subjected to ordinary good gardening practices - watering, mulching, and fertilising. Ordinary balanced fertiliser, as for veges, will do - there’s no need to use special “native” fertiliser.
Young trees produce only male flowers, which are at the end of the branches. Then at around 15 years they begin to produce female flowers on the inner third of their branches.

They will produce more nuts if grown in groups. They are wind-pollinated, and this female-over-male flower arrangement is designed to prevent the female flowers from being fertilised by pollen from the male flowers of their own tree.
For more on Bunya Trees see Jan 2008 and April 2009.

A Special Callistemon

2011-02-06T17:18:00.000-08:00

The best known Callistemon in our part of the world is the very common small tree, the “weeping bottlebrush”, Callistemon viminalis, with its bright red flowers.
We have another local Callistemon, little known, and unnamed.
I photographed this specimen in a garden near Felton, where it was humming with life. At least six kinds of insect were feeding on the nectar in the flowers, three of them large and beautiful butterflies.
The seed from which this one was grown came from a small population of the plants, spread along just a few miles of Emu Creek, between Cambooya and Felton. In most of the creek, including near the Emu Creek State School the callistemons are the more usual C. viminalis with its familiar red flowers.
(This “Emu Creek” is not to be confused with the many others of the same name, in our country where this large bird was once common, including the other “Emu Creek” in our district, north of Crows Nest.)

As you can see, the flowers vary in colour, opening salmon pink, and fading to cream. The effect of mixed colours on the bush is very pretty.

Young plants have the bushy habit shown above, both in the wild and in gardens. Older plants develop into substantial small trees.

I photographed these last weekend, from the bridge over Emu Creek, on the Cambooya-Felton Road.
They do look a bit flood-bothered, don’t they?

Another view of the largest tree, taken from another angle, gives a better idea of its size - and of the size of the flood which burst the banks of the creek and spread over the surrounding plain.

Like C. viminalis, these would be a good choice to plant in areas where flooding may sweep away less sturdy vegetation. They hold on tightly to the soil with their flood- and drought-adapted roots, and survive inundation.
As you see, they thrive on the heavy black soil.
Other small populations of what may be the same species occur in various places, mostly on tributaries of the Condamine River. It grows at Chinchilla, and has officially been given the interim name of Callistemon sp. (Chinchilla D.M.Gordon 401). It has also been called sp. ‘Surat’ and sp. ‘Koreelah Creek’.
It also grows (assuming these plants are indeed all the same species) on Oakey Creek in the Brookvale area. The late Lance Cockburn, of Brookvale Park Botanic Garden fame, sold them as Callistemon 'Weir River'. (Weir River is out near Moonie.)
This should be a special plant for those of us who live on the Darling Downs, and value our very own natives.
I look forward to seeing it become easier to buy!

Toothache Tree

2011-01-27T21:53:00.000-08:00

Melicope micrococca
Here is another of those local dry rainforest tree species which would be suitable for use in the garden. It has a dense canopy of these shiny, dark green trifoliate leaves, and like so many of our dry rainforest trees, produces masses of small white insect-attracting flowers.
Old rainforest-grown specimens might have a trunk diameter of 60cm, but 30cm is a more usual size. The remnant of a large old tree can be seen on the road reserve in Hiwinds Road at Mt Kynoch. It is probably in indicator that the type of dry rainforest known as semi-evergreen vine thicket was once dense in that area, before it was cleared for farms in the 19th century. It has fallen over, but is getting a second lease of life, as new stems shoot from the old tree-stump. It is good to see the tree being valued by the householders adjacent to that part of the road.
I photographed these flowers in Peacehaven Botanic park (Highfields) last week. The little four-year-old tree was a mass of them, inside the canopy. They were covered with beetles, enjoying the feast. We can expect to see the panicles of little grey seed capsules any time between February and June. They are eaten by a variety of birds.
This tree's tough but soft white timber gives it the common name “white doughwood”, but I prefer the name our early settlers learned from aborigines, who recognised its medicinal value. I wouldn’t recommend it for home use, though. An aboriginal describing the method of use, said that a leaf should be folded up and placed on the problem tooth. The sufferer should bite on it, and would then “drop dead 20 minutes”, before waking up cured. The possibility that the user might not wake up at all sounds like a too-possible alternative outcome!
Like most of our “scrub” trees, this one is drought resistant, and tolerates some frost.

Guioa

2011-01-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

Guioa semiglauca

The fruits on the guioa tree (pronounce its name with a hard “G”, as “GEE-O-A”) at Peacehaven Botanic Park in Highfields are just beginning to ripen.

They have this odd little habit. As these orange aril-covered fruits reach the peak of perfection, they drop out of their capsules to dangle temptingly, on little threads. How could a fruit-loving bird resist?

Guoias are usually found in gullies in dry rainforests where hoop pines dominate, which means they very much at home on the range-side of Toowoomba. They are small trees (trunk diameter to about 20cm). Mature plants have corrugated trunks, often adorned with lichens. They begin flowering while young, and havea long flowering period in spring, with tiny, white, honey-scented white flowers which invite the attention of masses of bees and butterflies.
“Semiglauca” means “half-white”, and refers to the leaves which are green on the top and whitish underneath. This makes the shady canopy of the guioa very attractive when a breeze ruffles the leaves.

These little trees are fast-growing pioneer plants, particularly useful for re-establishing forests, or getting a garden off to a quick start. Their timber is rather brittle, and mature trees tend to break in storms if they are grown in exposed positions. This is not the problem it might be with a larger tree. However, the best site for it is a sheltered one where it only has to cope with polite breezes.

Guioas are good shade and shelter tree for ferns, which like to grow under them. Epiphytes, both ferns and orchids, grow naturally on the trunks of these “good all-rounder” trees.

Brown Malletwood

2011-01-20T20:05:00.000-08:00

Rhodamnia rubescens
I photographed these fruits at Peacehaven Botanic Park in Highfields in November. The same little plant is still in fruit, two months later, demonstrating how the fruits make this an outstanding ornamental small tree.
We can see old specimens in the centre picnic ground at Ravensbourne National Park (though not just at present, as it is inaccessible due to flood damage on the Esk-Hampton Highway). There, the topknot pigeons, and no doubt many other birds, delight in feasting on this plentiful food source.

Brown Malletwood grows to be a small tree, suitable even for small suburban gardens, and develops a shady canopy of these pretty leaves. Its little white flowers are sweetly perfumed
Hardy and fast-growing, it is one of the few local native plants sometimes seen in gardens.

A plant of dry rainforests, it is drought-hardy.

2011-01-13T21:05:00.001-08:00

Boggabri
Amaranthus mitchellii
I would like to think all my readers had come through the floods unharmed, and with your property more or less intact - though I know that some of you will not have been so fortunate. My heart goes out to those who have suffered grief, or injury. My sympathy also goes to those who are surveying flood-ruined property, and girding themselves to face the tasks of cleaning, repairing and replacing - tasks which I know may take years in some cases.
Meanwhile, most of you have probably been shopping for food by now, as I have, and have glumly surveyed almost empty shelves, with a few bedraggled vegetables and sad-looking fruits being all that’s left of the rich and varied offerings we have come to expect of our supermarkets and greengrocers.
Early white settlers in Australia were quite familiar with the problem, and for them, it had a major effect on their health. They suffered from scurvy, caused by a lack of vitamin C. They often failed to recognise it, scurvy being thought of as a sailors’ disease, so they called it “Barcoo rot”. In time, they came to realise that eating green leaves cured the problem, and they looked for reasonable-tasting plants which could provide them with what they thought of as “spinach”.

Boggabri was one such plant.

Nowadays, “amaranths” are quite familiar to us, as at least 17 species have been introduced to Australia - most by accident, but some as garden vegetables - and they have become common garden weeds. There are few native amaranths, and they are all plants of the inland. Boggabri typically grows on periodically flooded sites such as our blacksoil areas. It’s a knee-high annual, with protein-rich seeds and leaves high in Vitamin C.
Amaranths of various kinds, the world over, have a long history of being eaten as leafy vegetables. They have an unfortunate tendency to concentrate nitrates in their leaves. As nitrates are implicated in stomach cancers, this is a concern, albeit a minor one, to users of this plant. The risk is proportionate to the amount of nitrogen in the soil, so plants grown in soil high in artificial nitrogen fertiliser are best avoided, while those wild-picked from poor soil would be safe so long as they are eaten in normal spinach-type quantities - quite enough to keep the “rot” at bay. The tastiest (and safest) leaves, as with all our leafy vegetables, are those of young plants ,which have not yet flowered.
If our local aborigines used this plant at all they probably ate the seeds only. They are very high in protein - probably around 18%. Compare this to grains such an wheat and rice which have about 9-14% protein. Unlike them, amaranth seeds contain complete proteins, so are very suitable for vegetarians.
Boggabri should be planted in a sunny spot, at any frost-free time of year, and needs good soil moisture for the 6-8 weeks growing period. It often “volunteers” in cotton crops, taking advantage of the irrigation period and being regarded as a weed by growers (who also use the name “boggabri” for the much smaller native plant, Amaranthus macrocarpus).
Other plants used by early white settlers used to stave off scurvy include: New Zealand Spinach or “Warrigul Greens” Tetragonia tetragonioides (See Oct 2008), Wandering Sailor Commelina cyanea (See Dec 2008), various saltbushes (March 2009 and Feb 2010), rainforest spinach Elatostema reticulatum and common pigweed, or “purslane” Portulaca oleracea.

Plants Suffering in the Wet?

2011-01-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

There is just a bit too much rain happening, isn’t there?
The native plants are loving it of course - except for the ones that are drowning!
Other plants having a bad time of it are garden plants which only grow naturally in well-drained soil. Introduced into our red- and even our black-soil gardens, they may do well for years, so long as they don’t get too wet. A rain event like this can be too much for them. Our basalt soils have a high clay content. Once wet, they stay that way, and that is too much for the roots of some plants, which succumb to fungal diseases.
I have great admiration for those skilled gardeners who can grow plants from anywhere and everywhere - especially those who are helping to preserve rare and endangered plants by cultivating them.
But for those who want an easier life, there’s no doubt that growing local native plants can be a surer way of filling your garden with things that won’t drop dead if there’s an extreme weather event.
Meanwhile, it’s the BEST PLANTING SEASON we’ve had for many years. It’s a particularly good time to get dry rainforest trees and shrubs in. Some of these plants can have an irritating tendency to mark time, growth-wise, in dry weather - but given this kind of rain, they can grow very fast indeed.
Meanwhile, WATCH OUT FOR VOLUNTEERS. If you live in a place where local natives may self-seed, and they happen to do it in a place where they could have a future, it is well worth preserving these little bits of serendipity in your garden - even at the cost of sacrificing a previous planting plan. Having grown in situ from seed. They will have the strongest roots systems, and are likely to be the longest-lived, strongest and healthiest of all your plants.

Native Hibiscus

2011-01-06T18:33:00.000-08:00

Hibiscus heterophyllus

Here’s a plant that’s loving the rain. My native hibiscus have flowered better this year than ever before - their only problem is that they will only open their flowers if the sun shines. I feels hard to believe as i write this with the rain pouring down, but we've actually had a lot of sunny intervals these last few months, and for those, the Hibiscus have been the stars of my garden.

Dry rainforest is a plant type that can lack showy flowers, so these light-coloured beauties are a feature which can be seen from far away. No wonder the butterflies and beetles love them!

The plants are medium to tall open shrubs, with branches and blue-green leaves that are "scratchy" rather than actually prickly. If I prune them I do prefer to wear long sleeves and gloves.

However they do well to be allowed to find their own natural shape, a graceful one which contrasts strongly with that of the commonly-grown introduced hibiscus.

Like so many dry rainforest species, they are very drought hardy, but only tolerate light frosts. They prefer to be sheltered, and may break if exposed to strong winds. And of course they need a sunny situation to flower.
They are fast-growing in all weathers.
There is a local yellow form of this plant, growing on sandstone ridges down Flagstone Creek way. I have a young one growing in my hillside redsoil, and so far it has stood up well to to the assault of the rains.

Wet Weather Lilies

2010-12-31T22:10:00.000-08:00

Crinum flaccidum
I suspect Hughie has been rummaging in his shed this season, and found all those buckets of the stuff that he has forgotten to send down over the last ten years or so.
My sympathy goes out to all those who are suffering from too much rain. How ironic that we have been wanting it so badly these last years!
Living, as we do, on high ground, the floods have only been a comparatively trivial nuisance to us. We have been out and about, trying to show some overseas visitors the local scenery. They spent a month with us, and saw precious little of "sunny Queensland"!

At least we Toowoomba people can take some pleasure in knowing that our combined dam levels are now up to 61% of their capacity, the best we’ve seen since the dams last filled in February 2001, and a very refreshing contrast to the low of 8.7% a year ago.
But, Hughie, now let's just have a rest from it all!

One plant that is revelling in the summer rains is the Darling Lily. We photographed these (growing on the soggy flatlands in mixed alluvial soil) at Lake Broadwater last week.

We also saw them between Maclagan and Quinalow, on hillsides, in chocolate soil, and yesterday by the Gatton bypass on a low sandstone hill. Obviously these are plants which tolerate a wide range of conditions. (We haven’t been out to the Cooby Dam precinct, but have in the past seen them by the road there as well.)

For more about these lilies, see Dec 2008

Sticky Daisy Bush

2010-12-31T22:04:00.000-08:00

Olearia elliptica

I photographed these attention-getting daisies out at Lake Broadwater, but the species can also be found in Redwood Park, just near Toowoomba.
Australian daisy bushes seem to be more valued overseas than here in their own country. We don't often see them in local gardens, yet they are very attractive plants.

Like many daisies, they are not long-lived (though the ones in my garden are still going strong at seven years old). Pruning makes dense shrubs of them, and probably prolongs their lives as well.

Mine are about as high as I am, and put on a good show of these little white daisies each year. The shiny upper surface of the leaves has a very slightly sticky feel to it.
Like all daisies, these drought and frost-hardy plants attract butterflies, which feed on the nectar - and I find they are very appealing to the little stingless native bees as well.

The Cherry with the Seed on the Outside

2010-12-24T00:22:00.000-08:00

Exocarpos cuppressiformis

When the English first settled in Australia, they made much of it as an “upside-down, back-to-front” place. Swans were black instead of white. The trees lost their bark in summer, instead of their leaves in winter. And the cherries had their seeds on the outside!
I saw a good crop of these “cherries” (more usually called Ballarts) at Girraween National Park last weekend. The bower birds were going crazy over them.
The pretty, leafless shrubs are partly parasitic on the roots of plants around them, and are not choosy. They are said to be able to use grasses, Eucalypts, wattles, Casuarinas, Banksias, Grevilleas, and plants in the pea family.
They are very tolerant of soil type, growing on Girraween’s granite soil, but also quite at home on basaltic soil. However, they are being slowly eliminated from our area by urban sprawl.
They are regarded as difficult plants to propagate. Some growers have had success with seed germination (finding it can take up to 12 months) and cuttings. Failure after being planted out is a problem, and could perhaps be helped by growing the small plant in a pot with a host plant, which is then also planted out - though there are others who have had success with the plants on their own roots.
The moral of the story is certainly that if you have any of them growing naturally, you should treasure them (and don't hesitate to boast)! And do remember that they are probably depending to at least some extent on the naturally occurring plants around them, so preserving the ballarts may also require you to preserve some of their nearby vegetation.
In the wild, even in places where they are not being cleared, they may tend to decline. They depend on fires to rejuvenate the plants and germinate the seeds, and most of us would much rather not have fires on our properties!
Ballarts tend to sucker. Damaging the roots, or simply chopping off the old plant, encourages this to happen, and is a good way to renew a straggly old plant.
The "fruit" is good to eat, but only when very ripe. When ready it will fall off in your hand as you go to pick it. I couldn’t find any at this stage of ripeness at Girraween, as the bower birds were beating the people to them. At even a little less ripe, they taste disgusting! The inconspicuous cream flowers, and these showy fruits can occur sporadically at any time of year, but are often at their best at Christmastime.

Native Raspberry Fruit

2010-12-13T23:44:00.001-08:00

Rubus parvifolius
Usually considered the most humble of our local raspberry species, in dry years this one puts out very few fruit indeed. It's a very drought hardy plant, typically living in dry grasslands rather than the rainforest habitat of most of its relatives, and is rarely given the chance to show its true ability.

This year, however, this plant at Peacehaven Botanic park has fruited magnificently, demonstrating just what it can do, given the kind of watering that this plant has had naturally from this year's rain.

It is possibly the most tasty of all Australia’s native raspberries - delicious.

For photos of the same plant in flower, see October.

Crinkle Bush

2010-12-13T23:32:00.001-08:00

Lomatia silaifolia
The Crinkle Bushes are flowering unusually well this year, on the roadside between Hampton and Pechey.

These curious plants are related to Grevilleas, and as you can see, the flowers look rather like grevilleas, but with petals.
The flowers are said to be fly-repellant, and for that reason, some people plant them close to the house. Others claim that the sweet-smelling flowers give them a headache, so this is something to be considered when siting plants in the garden.
They are fast-growing plants, shown below at Peacehaven Botanic Park, already at their full height.

Snow-wood

2010-12-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

Pararchidendron pruinosum

I photographed these lovely flowers at Peacehaven Botanic Park (Kuhls Road Highfields) a few weeks ago.

This is the first flowering that this little four-year-old tree has produced. You can see that it’s flowers open white, and darken to deep orange before dying, making a very pretty show on the tree. They are said to be sweet-scented, but I forgot to take a sniff. Perhaps you could try it yourself. The tree is to be found in the dry rainforest section of the park.
This little tree is also called “Monkey’s earrings” because of its bright yellow seedpods, which curl into a circle, then open to show their bright red lining and shiny black seeds. Perhaps we’ll be lucky and see some at Peacehaven this autumn. The inference is that monkeys have a rather garish taste in jewellery!
See photos
http://nicolamoss.blogspot.com/2010/05/snow-wood-pararchidendron-pruinosum.html
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~peterrjones/plants/pararchidendron.html
The tree grows naturally on the escarpment below Harlaxton, at Ravensbourne, and in The Palms National Park north of Crows Nest, among other local sites.
Robert Campbell says he had some difficulty establishing it at Peacehaven, as it needed to be watered frequently in its early establishment phase. Now, however, it seems to be as drought hardy as the rest of Peacehaven’s plants.
We can expect it to grow into a neat little shade tree, with an ornamental red, flaky trunk. It would be suitable for a small suburban garden.
Its flowers are attractive to all kinds of butterflies. Tailed emperors can also breed on it. (see article below)

Planting for Butterflies

2010-12-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

“Butterfly planting” is all the rage at the moment - and what beautiful results it will produce, as these gardens mature.
When planting for butterflies there are two main points to consider:
Things to do:
1. Plant flowers that adult butterflies will come to.
This is very easy. They don’t care whether their flowers are native or introduced. All they care about is that they have nectar (which is what adult butterflies live on), and most flowers have plenty of that. Excellent “butterfly-attracting” gardens are often produced by people who had never a thought of butterflies when they planted - they just planted pretty flowers.
2. Plant flowers that caterpillars can grow up on. Each kind of butterfly has only a few “host plant” species that its caterpillars can eat. Without caterpillars, there are no butterflies - and those “butterfly-attracting” gardens which only considered flowers for the adults go begging.
Our suburban gardens are increasingly butterfly-deficient despite offering a smorgasbord of flowers. The reason? Bushland containing butterfly host plants is constantly being cleared as our suburbs spread. Each year, butterflies have further to fly, and often give those nectar-rich suburban gardens a complete miss.
To make a good job of creating a butterfly garden, you need first to know whether the “butterfly plant” you are contemplating is a host plant or merely a flowering plant. Then you need to have some idea of just which butterflies are likely to make use of the host plants. It’s no good planting a host for a butterfly which doesn’t actually occur in your part of Australia.
Most butterfly host plants are native, and local native host plants are the best choice, as they clearly work for the local butterflies!

A Blue Triangle.
These pretty butterflies need plants from the Laurel family to breed on. A good local native laurel is the small, shady, dry rainforest tree, the Bollygum, Neolitsea Dealbata.

The best source of information on plants to grow in our part of the world is a booklet called “Butterfly Host Plants of south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales”, written by John T, Moss. It lists 327 plant species for 201 species of butterflies, and is available from the Butterfly and Other Invertebrates Club, PO Box 2113 RUNCORN, Q 4113. You can email the club from this link:
http://www.boic.org.au/01_cms/details.asp?ID=3

Butterflies obviously love the nectar from these newly opened Callistemon flowers!
However, the success of this plant, which must have been feeding least thirty butterflies on the day I took this photo, depends heavily on its situation in a garden which is near bushland.
(The butterflies are: Caper White, Blue Tiger, Crow, Native Wanderer.)

Things Not to Do
1. Don’t Plant Environmental Weeds

Planting for butterflies is a great environmental initiative. It’s a pity to smirch it by planting environment-damaging species.
“Environmental weeds” are defined as plants which, though not locally native, spread (like natives) without any help from humans in the form of digging, planting, or watering. These plants are likely to jump your garden fence and establish themselves in the wild, or on the properties of your less-than-grateful neighbours.
Extra plants added to the wild are not mere harmless new arrivals, however much they may seem to be adding variety and colour to the bush. Each one takes up space which should be being filled by a native plant, and the long-term result is always less, not more, plant variety. Not only are native plant numbers reduced by their presence, the various animals (including butterflies) which needed the native plants for survival are reduced too.
Gardens don’t have to be restricted to native plants, however. There are plenty of lovely, easy-to-grow introduced plants, particularly ones with showy flowers which attract adult butterflies, which have shown no weedy tendencies. You can rely on them not to escape to make pests of themselves.
Unfortunately, environmental weeds are also readily available, and it is up to gardeners themselves to be discriminating. Potential weeds feature heavily among the ones typically given by helpful people to innocent young gardeners as garden starters. “This one will spread and fill the space in no time” they say - or “once this one gets going it just self-seeds and looks after itself”.
Reputable nurseries are usually - but not always - reliable in this regard, but weekend markets are great sources of environmental weeds. They are so easily reproduced that it’s no trouble to pot up these nice little money-earners by the hundreds.
And a few are even sold as “butterfly attracting” plants!

If you see non-native plants like the Coreopsis (above and below) growing on the roadsides, your "weed alert!" alarm bells should start ringing!

2. Don’t bother with host plants for feral butterflies.
We have a few of these, and they are doing very well indeed, thank you very much, not needing any help in the way of deliberate plantings in “butterfly gardens”.
One of these is the Wanderer or
Monarch, (Danaus plexippus) introduced into Australia (from America) in about 1880. Growing host plants for this one is like planting a “wildlife garden” then boasting about how many rabbits and pigs you are attracting!

An added disadvantage is that its milkweed hosts are very infectious feral weeds that your neighbours may get quite grumpy about.

Balloon Cottonbush Gomphocarpus physocarpus.
Avoid this feral weed, its very similar cousin G. fruticosus, and their equally weedy friend the red-headed cotton bush , Asclepias curavassica

Cabbage White Butterfly, our other feral butterfly.
Distinguish it from some similar native butterflies by the black spots on the forewings - two for females, one for males.
This is now Australia's most common urban butterfly.
Is your garden attracting something better?

Butterfly Host Plants for the Toowoomba District

2010-12-02T19:35:00.000-08:00

A Shortlist
There are several hundred local butterfly host plant species, attracting almost a hundred butterfly species. Here are some of the most desirable for gardens, all native to the area covered by this blogsite.
LARGE TREES
Blush Walnut Beilschmiedia obtusifolia BLUE TRIANGLE BUTTERFLY
Flame Tree Brachychiton acerifolius TAILED EMPEROR, AEROPLANE, VARIOUS BLUES, JEWELS AND HAIRSTREAKS

Tailed Emperor on my window.

Mowbullan Whitewood Elaeocarpus kirtonii BRONZE FLAT, FIERY JEWEL
Crows Ash Flindersia australis ORCHARD SWALLOWTAIL
Brush Box Lophostemon confertus BRONZE FLAT, RED-EYE, JEWEL BUTTERFLIES

MEDIUM-SIZED TREES
Wattles Acacia species TAILED EMPERORS, YELLOWS, BLUES, JEWELS AND HAIRSTREAKS

Yellow Migrant

Birdseyes and Boonarees Alectryon species BRONZE FLATS, JEWELS, BLUES, AND CORNELIANS
Soap Tree Alphitonia excelsa VARIOUS BLUES, JEWELS AND HAIRSTREAKS
Piccabeen Palm Archontophoenix cunninghamii PALM DART SPECIES
Lacebark, Kurrajong, Bottle Tree: Brachychiton species TAILED EMPEROR, AEROPLANE, VARIOUS BLUE AND JEWEL BUTTERFLIES
Yellow Tulipwod Drypetes deplanchei YELLOW ALBATROSS
Silver-leafed Ironbark Eucalyptus melanophloia DAEMEL’S BLUE
LITTLE TREES
Wattles Acacia species AS ABOVE
Native Capers, Capparis species FIVE SPECIES OF CAPER BUTTERFLIES

Caper White

Velvet Cassia Cassia tomentella LEMON MIGRANT, TAILED EMPEROR
Native Round Lime Citrus australis VARIOUS SWALLOWTAILS
Bollygums Neolitsea species BRONZE FLAT, BLUE TRIANGLE
Murrogun Cryptocarya microneura (Cryptocarya glaucescens var. reticulata) MACLEAY’S SWALLOWTAIL, BRONZE FLATS, BLUE TRIANGLE ORCHARD SWALLOWTAIL
Native Cassia Cassia tomentella YELLOWS, TAILED EMPEROR.

SHRUBS
Pretty Wattle Acacia decora TAILED EMPERORS, YELLOWS, BLUES, JEWELS AND HAIRSTREAKS

Lemon Migrant

Holly Dovewood Alchornea ilicifolia YELLOW ALBATROSS
Breynia Breynia oblongifolia YELLOWS
Blueberry Ash Elaeocarpus reticulatus BRONZE FLAT
Dogwood Jacksonia scoparia BLUES AND JEWELS
Native Cassias Senna coronilloides, S. artemisioides etc YELLOWS, TAILED EMPEROR.

CLIMBERS
Cressida Butterfly Vine Aristolochia meridionalis CLEARWING

Clearwing

Zig-zag Vine Melodorum leichhardtii FOUR-BAR SWORDTAIL, RED-EYE

Four-bar Swordtail

Native Passionfruit Passiflora aurantia GLASSWING
Doubah, Marsdenia viridiflora COMMON CROW, NATIVE WANDERER
Gargaloo, Parsonsia eucalyptoides COMMON CROW.
Corky Milk Vine Secamone elliptica BLUE TIGER, COMMON CROW, NATIVE WANDERER

Blue Tiger

FLOWERS AND HERBS
Spade flower Hybanthus enneaspermus GLASSWING
Native Plumbago Plumbago zeylanica PLUMBAGO BLUE
Love Flower Pseuderanthemum variabile LEAFWING, ARGUS, EGGFLY.
Fan Flowers Scaevola species MEADOW ARGUS
Native Nettles Urtica incisa AUSTRALIAN ADMIRAL

Australian Admiral

Paper daisies, Xerochrysum and other species PAINTED LADY

GRASSES, RUSHES
Matrushes Lomandra longifolia SKIPPERS
Tussock grasses Poa species BROWNS, SKIPPERS

Banks' Brown, at the Bunya Mountains

Kangaroo Grass Themeda triandra BROWNS, RINGLETS

MISTLETOES
(Plant seeds on existing trees)
Most Mistletoe species. JEZEBELS, AZURES

Scarlet Jezebel

Canary Muskheart

2010-11-25T16:45:00.000-08:00

Alangium villosum

When it comes to domatia, this tree is an enthusiast!

Many plant species have these little pits along their mid-veins, but I’ve never before come across leaves so generously endowed with them.
Domatia are an ingenious plant invention. As their name implies, they are little “homes” provided by plants for the accommodation of mites. Most of the mites which make themselves at home there are beneficial ones. They protect the leaf by eating tiny herbivorous insects, fungi and other disease pathogens.
Unfortunately for the landlord, some undesirable tenants are also likely to move in - but the overall balance is usually one where beneficial mites dominate, so the overall effect for the plant, of providing this free mite accommodation, is a protective one - and you can see how healthy this leaf is looking.
Canary muskheart gets its common name from its bright yellow sapwood, and the dense, dark, musk-scented heartwood inside it. It once occurred naturally in Toowoomba, but is now only found in the Boyce Garden, where it grows naturally in the last remnant of our original rainforest.
Old specimens of canary muskheart can reach 20m high and to a diameter of 90cm. Large trees are seldom seen, however. Early timbergetters probably cut it with enthusiasm, as its timber is outstandingly beautiful. Close-grained and firm, it is valued by conoisseurs of fine woods for carving and turnery. It was also popular for walking sticks, so even small trees were cut.
Its little yellow flowers are honeysuckle scented, and the succulent black fruits are the size and shape of olives, but have longitudinal ribbing. They are a favourite fruit of rainforest pigeons.
This is a plant which likes to grow on a variety of soils, including basalt redsoil, and prefers to be sheltered and partially shaded when young. It is slow-growing, and may never reach its full potential size in a suburban garden. However, slow-growing plants should be a part of every garden which is not to vanish without trace in the future.

Sweet Morinda

2010-11-25T16:39:00.000-08:00

Morinda jasminodes
Like the plant above, this vine’s domatia are also “over the top”.

In this case, it’s not their numbers which impress, but their size. The mite-habitat pits are so large that they make conspicuous bumps on the upperside of the leaves, making the plant easy to identify when it's not flowering or fruiting.
“Morinda” is an Indian word, and is the common name for Morinda citrifolia, a plant which grows in south-east Asia, some Pacific islands, and in tropical northern Australia. It is also called Indian mulberry or noni fruit. Its potato-sized fruit tastes foul, and may be toxic if too much is consumed, but is nonetheless popular for its alleged health-giving properties. The bark and leaves of the Indian Mulberry yield a red dye, while yellow dye is made from its roots. As with its relative the mulberry, its leaves can be used to raise silkworms. Our local Morindas may be found to have some of the same useful qualities, but like many Australian plants, their potential has never been fully explored.
Our two local Morinda species typically grow on the edges of both moist and dry rain forests, and in vine thickets. Sweet morinda is the larger of the two.
In the open, it grows into a large tangled shrub - great for covering an ugly tree-stump or hiding a tumbledown shed. With a bit of discipline from the secateurs, it makes a handsome bird-sheltering shrub. If there is anything to climb on, however, this plant will do it with enthusiasm. Despite its somewhat disorderly behaviour, it’s one of our prettiest native plants. Even when not flowering or fruiting, its very shiny leaves make it appealing.

Sweet Morinda is named for the scent of its creamy, butterfly-attracting white flowers, which are produced for up to three months in spring and early summer. They are followed by lumpy, orange, bird-attracting orange fruits, up to 2cm in diameter. These are worth a close look, being actually compound fruits formed by the fusion of many tiny fruits, with no two quite alike.

Saturday Plant Sale

2010-11-16T20:19:00.000-08:00

Local Plant species at Great Prices.
Saturday 27 November (8.00am - 1.00pm)
Small Tubes, $2.50. Large Tubes, $5.00.
(15% off orders of $50.00 or more)

The Crows Nest Community Nursery is one of our community’s best sources of local native plant species, all grown from locally sourced seed.

Normally, however, it opens only on Thursdays, making it difficult for some to access. So the coming Saturday Open Day is one not to be missed!

The nursery is currently well-stocked with rainforest and dry rainforest trees and shrubs.
Despite the expectation that “rainforest” plants need lots of water, our local species are deep-rooted, drought-hardy plants. The trees are more suitable for gardens than species from rainforests closer to the coasts, as many of them are naturally quite small trees. You can can have the rainforest look in your garden without sacrificing its waterwise qualities. Ask at the nursery for something that would suit the size of your garden.

Manager Steve plant tells me that he also has lots of the spectacular Spear Lily Doryanthes palmeri (left)
(see my article May 2008)

Spear Lily takes many years to produce a flower, but becomes a stately foliage plant in only a few years. A row of them looks wonderful.

There are also plenty of the rainforest bush tucker plants, Blueberry Ginger Alpinea caerulea, (see articles May and Nov 2009)

This Nursery is owned by the Toowoomba Regional Council, which is to be congratulated for providing such a valuable service to the community and to our local environment. Steve Plant, (Natural Resource Management Field Officer for the Northern Region of the TRC) and his team fit the management of the nursery in with his various other duties. Successful operation of the nursery is made possible by some keen volunteers who do much of the nursery work each Thursday. (Perhaps you would like to join them?)
THE NURSERY’S ADDRESS: Depot Road, Crows Nest Industrial Estate
HOW TO GET THERE: If coming from the south on the New England Highway, turn right, into the Industrial Estate - BEFORE you get to the town proper. (If you cross the creek at Bullocky’s Rest, you’ve gone too far. Turn back.)
Follow Industrial Ave - the road parallel to the highway - then turn right into Timber St. At the end of that, turn right into Depot road. The nursery is at the end.
ON THE WAY:
Perhaps you’d like to call in at Peacehaven Botanic Park, in Kuhl’s Road Highfields. Many of the shrubs and trees growing there can be bought at the Crows Nest Community Nursery.
You could choose your favourites from the Park (take a notebook, so you can copy the names from the labels) and ask for them at the nursery.
NOTE: The plants you see at Peacehaven were planted in 2006 and later. They have not been watered since planting. You can see a good example of their growth speed, in a garden where the soil has been well-prepared, and the plants mulched.

TO GET THERE: If coming from Toowoomba, turn left at the first traffic lights at Highfields, then right into Kuhl’s Road. Peacehaven is 600m along, on the left.

Blueberry Ash

2010-11-16T20:15:00.000-08:00

Elaeocarpus reticulatus

This exceptionally pretty plant is flowering at Peacehaven Botanic Park. In the wild it is a large shrub or small tree of rainforest edges, but it has become deservedly popular in gardens.

Its aniseed-scented fairy petticoat flowers can be pink or white, and the fruits, looking like bright blue olives, hang on the tree for a long period.
This tough plant grows well in sun or shade, but needs well-drained soil. It tolerates light frosts, and survives Toowoomba’s droughts. For best growth, though, it likes water and fertiliser (or rich soil) when young, and does appreciate being mulched.

The Cutest Dragon

2010-11-13T16:08:00.000-08:00

Darling Downs Earless Dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla)

This little fellow was on display yesterday in a Pittsworth Landcare display at Bunnings in Toowoomba.

It is classified as Endangered in Queensland (Nature Conservation Act 1992) and nationally (Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999). These acts classify flora and fauna as”not of concern”, “threatened”, “vulnerable”, “endangered”, and “extinct” - in that order.
One of Australia’s smallest dragon-lizards, it is only 12cm long including its rather long tail. It’s not really earless. The ears are just hidden behind scales.
The lizards’ natural habitat is the treeless grassland which grows on the cracking black clay soils of the Darling Downs. (A separate population of a very similar lizard, which may or may not turn out to be the same species, is found in southern New South Wales, Victoria, and the ACT.)
The lizards come out in the daytime to look for the little insects which they eat - but they can be hard to find, because of their tendency to disappear down the cracks in the blacksoil. This year they’ve been a bit easier to see, as the good rains have closed the cracks. They have also made the grass grow, however (see article on Plains Grass below) - so the lizards can find have plenty of places to hide, in the gaps between tall tussocks. And they do need to be able to hide, as cats and foxes are very effective enemies.
It is breeding season, so males in breeding colour (bright yellow throat and chin) and pregnant females are about.
One of the most endangered environments in our area is the grassland, which once made the Darling Downs so famous. It persisted for a century after white settlement, when grazing was a major industry on the Downs, but has disappeared rapidly since the 1950s, as the grazing industry has moved west, replaced here by croplands. There are a few small protected areas, but no dragons have been found in any of them. Grasslands with a potential to be dragon habitat do still occur on roadsides, but are very prone to mismanagement from an environmental point of view. So the dragons are, at present, quite dependant on private landowners for their existence. They have been shown to be able to survive in intensely cropped areas, but must also appreciate the shelter provided in preserved remnants of grassland such as the one described below.

Feathery Hopbush

2010-11-12T19:07:00.001-08:00

Dodonaea tenuifolia
Toowoomba Field Naturalists were privileged to be able to visit the new McEwan State Forest, out near Pittsworth, last weekend. Not yet open to the public, this newly acquired land is expected to become a national park - something we badly need in this area - and to be open to the public in the next year or so.

One of the plants we saw there was this very pretty hop-bush.

Like the other hop-bushes, it flowers inconspicuously, then produces its showy seed capsules in spring each year.
It may be our prettiest local hop-bush, with its frilly-winged pink capsules. Though grown as an ornamental in America, it can be difficult to purchase here in its own country, though I notice it’s available from the Greening Australia nursery in Brisbane. One would need to buy several seedlings to ensure getting hops, as they occur only on the female plants. They could be grown in groups, to make dense clumps. They can be expected to grow to about head-height - but may make a prettier (denser) plant if kept lower by pruning.
There are about 70 species of Dodonaea. Most of them are Australian, but some are found in other tropical or sub-tropical countries - Africa, Asia, and America. They are related to the introduced Koelreuteria (Golden Rain) trees which are used as street trees in toowoomba, and put on such a lovely show every autumn, with their coppery seed capsules. Unlike the Koelreuteria, hop bushes are not environmental weeds!
The name “hop-bush” was given to them by early settlers, who apparently used their seed capsules as substitutes for the completely unrelated true hops (Humulus lupulus) in brewing beer. I have no idea whether they were actually any good for the purpose!

Plains Grass

2010-11-12T18:51:00.000-08:00

Austrostipa aristiglumis
We don't often see native grasslands these days. This one is composed largely of Plains Grass, and was once a dominant grassland type on the Darling Downs. It is on private property near Mt Tyson.
Although this is potentially very good grazing land, the ungrazed paddock has been retained by the farm's owners because of its value as habitat for wildlife - particularly the rare grassland earless dragon (Tympanocryptis pinguicolla).
I imagine there are other reptiles which would also like living here - which made me feel quite cautious about tramping into this situation!

Preservation of the grassland will provide habitat for numerous other wildlife species, including mammals and birds, which appreciate the feast of plump seeds on these pretty heads.
Seed of plains grass (also called "plump speargrass") is available commercially, as it is also appreciated by landscape gardeners. A patch of them, besides being attractive, would add value to any wildlife-friendly garden - particularly one on black soil. A densely planted stand will exclude most weeds.

Plains grass self-seeds readily. Its interesting seeds are “self-planting” having awns (the little whiskers on their ends) which twist more or less according to the humidity, and, with a little help from the wind, make the seeds burrow into the ground. However it is unlikely ever to become a weedy nuisance, as it is shallow-rooted and easy to uproot by hand. It is also killed by lawnmowing, so can easily be confined to a designated garden plot.
This is a drought and frost hardy plant, which prefers to grow in full sun.

Red Passionflower

2010-11-06T04:13:00.000-07:00

Passiflora aurantia

I found this little vine in flower at Picnic Point, this week (on the walking trail that runs alongside the road.)

It’s a dainty little tendril-climbing plant, with these showy flowers that are white when they first open, but mature, over four days, through pink to red.

Related to commercial passionfruit, they have the same characteristics in the flowers which led Spanish missionaries in America to give passionflowers their name - they saw them as symbols of the passion of Christ.

Look carefully and you can see the crown of thorns in the flower (the red bit on the white flower), the ten “petals” representing the ten faithful disciples, the three pistils symbolising the nails, and the five anthers Christ’s wounds - and so on.
The flowers drip with sweet nectar, so attract honeyeaters and insects.
The fruits, which will develop after these flowers die, are about 3cm long, and ripen from green to purple. Like all passionfruits, they are poisonous when unripe, but can be eaten once they’ve turned purple (though the flavour is not interesting).
As with so many rainforest climbers, they like to have their roots well-shaded and mulched, but want their heads in the sun for part of the day, for good flowering.
They could be grown on a small trellis, either in the ground or as a pot plant. Alternatively, their tendrils are said to be so effective that they can climb brick walls, so perhaps they could be used to add a decorative note to a boring wall (though I imagine they would object to the heat of the afternoon sun). They would certainly be inoffensive light climbers for the purpose, unlikely to damage brickwork or reach higher than 2 metres.
The plants are fast-growing but not long-lived. For a good display of flowers, it would be best to grow a number of the plants, with new ones inserted amongst the old every now and again.
The seed may germinate more readily if fermented first, but as the plant is easily reproduced from cuttings you may decide this is the way to go.
The plant is the local native host for glasswing butterflies - one of our less showy species, but interesting, with their transparent wings. This little butterfly is more common nowadays than it ever was, despite the decline in numbers of its native host plant. Glasswings can also breed on Passiflora foetida - otherwise known as Love-in-the-mist - or for the more prosaic of you, “stinky passionflower”.

This introduced weed is one of those plants which is probably here to stay in the Australian environment. It’s a vigorous plant which can out-compete our gentle local red passionflowers, so you need not feel guilty about picking caterpillars off the local plant species. They need protection more than the caterpillars do.