Strap Water Fern

Blechnum patersonii
Family: BLECHNACEAE 
This fern often attracts attention in damp rainforests as the it tends to grow on the earthen faces of path cuttings, on the uphill side of paths in our wetter local national parks along the Great Dividing Range. It also grows beside or in streams, and would do well in red soil gardens, in positions where it can have mulch, and shade for at least half the day.

I imagine it might be a particularly suitable plant for one of those fashionable "green walls" - provided it faced south or east and was shaded from the midday summer sun. It also grows well indoors and in areas with very low light levels.
Strap water fern grows better if watered in dry periods, but, like all our hardy local ferns, it tends to be prone to pests and diseases if the dampness is overdone. In nature, it tolerates the long dry periods of our climate, and even some light frosts. It doesn’t have to be a pampered pot plant or fern-house specimen.
The fronds of this rather delightful plant seem to be suffering an identity crisis. The simple strap  is the most common shape, but a single mature plant might have some straps, and some fronds with varying numbers of lobes.
The foliage (once the new pink fronds have dulled to green), is a rich, dark green.

The fertile fronds are very narrow indeed. It is common among ferns for the fertile fronds to be longer and skinnier than infertile ones, but strap water ferns carry the contrast to an exaggerated degree.

 




Here are two infertile fronds beside two fertile ones.
















The first time I saw this plant's narrow fertile leaves, with their heavily spore-encrusted edges, I mistook them for diseased fronds! Then I examined their backs, and realised they were heavily rimmed with spores.


Grown by itself, a single plant forms a rosette.

Thorny Yellowwood

Zanthoxylum brachyacanthum
Family: RUTACEAE
What is this plant’s future?




Here’s the trunk of a young thorny yellowwood, showing what a prickly little fellow it can be. Those thorns are sharp!
Like human teenagers, it will grow out of this prickly stage.
In older trees, the thorns thicken up and lose their sharp points. You can put your hand on the trunk of a mature tree, quite comfortably, even though it is still covered with the fat old thorns.
Notice the young vine in the photo above. Perhaps this yellowwood sapling will grow into a strong tree, up to 15 metres tall in its rainforest environment...







 

 

...or perhaps its future will be like that of the plant at right.


This one’s broad thorns tell us that it is actually quite an old plant, but life in the stranglehold of its encircling vine has not been easy. It hasn’t reached the size we might expect for a plant of its age.











Here's the trunk of a large specimen.


Thorny yellowwoods are pretty plants. Grown in optimum conditions, they become attractively shaped trees with dark, dense canopies, like this one at Peacehaven Botanic Park which I photographed three years ago.
 
Thorny yellowwoods grown in gardens, where they don’t have to compete with tall trees for light, will never reach the height of their rainforest relatives. 6-8m is a more likely maximum for a garden specimen. The plants are dioecious, so the best way to grow them might be in a grove of 3-5 trees, planted close that their canopies unite into one. This would give a high likelihood of having plants of both sexes.
They contribute to the environment by hosting swallowtail butterflies, and (in the case of fertilised female trees) producing shiny black seeds in bright red follicles to attract birds.

The Peacehaven plant is female, as these flowers show.

Australia has six Zanthoxylum species, all but this one being plants of the tropics. They all have aromatic bark, leaves and seed follicles.
Spices have been produced from most of the 250 or so overseas species of Zanthoxylum. For example, Sichuan pepper, one of the ingredients of Asian five-spice powder, is produced from the red follicles of any of several Zanthoxylum species. Young leaves and shoots of other species are used as garnishes or as an ingredient in a strongly flavoured pesto-like paste. Even the bark is used in small quantities for flavouring.
I am not aware that our local species has been used for any of these purposes, but the potential may be there.

The Rutaceae Family
This family is well known for the strong smell of its members' aromatic leaves.
Some smell wonderful, and some quite appalling.
It is a Gondwanan family, only one branch of which, (the one containing citrus fruits) has spread to any extent into the Northern Hemisphere.
Knowing the family of a plant can help us to know how to manage it, as a garden plant. Australian Rutaceae would rather you didn’t fertilise them. They are well-adapted to low-nutrient soils.
To find blogs on other local Rutaceae, search for the family name in the white search box at top left.

Leichhardt’s Ironbark

Bridelia leichhardtii
Family: PHYLLANTHACEAE
It’s interesting to see this tree at work.

Plants need something or someone to distribute their seeds about for them. Without this assistance, they would have thousands of babies with nowhere to grow but under their parents.
This tree, with its red fruits, is advertising for birds to do the job.
What it wants is for them to eat its fruit, clean its seeds, and deposit them, with a little dollop of fertiliser. It produces large numbers of fruits, so there is always a good chance that some of them will be dropped in a suitable site for growing.
Birds are attracted to the colour red. These particular  fruits are slightly translucent, and glow brightly in the sunshine, no doubt looking particularly appealing to any fruit-eating bird that flies past.
When it stops at the tree, however, it soon discovers that the red fruits are not yet ripe, but that the several black fruits scattered amongst them are soft, succulent, and no doubt delicious. Having learned this, birds are likely to return to the tree again and again during its fruiting season, spreading the fruits much more widely than they might have in just a few gorging sessions.
It is usually seen as a shady small tree, but can grow to have a prominently fissured trunk of as much as a 30cm diameter. It can also be a large, multi-trunked shrub.
It likes a well-drained soil, and can usually be found growing on hillsides, in red or black soil country.

Nodding saltbush

Einadia nutans subsp nutans (Rhagodia nutans)
Family: CHENOPODIACEAE

Now is a good time to go and look at these saltbushes, in Irongate Conservation Park.
This knee-high plant is fruiting profusely, with both red and yellow-fruited plants – notice their brilliantly coloured matching calyces – growing side by side.



These are such wildlife-friendly plants that it is a pity we don’t see them more often in gardens. Birds, particularly silvereyes and little honeyeaters, love the berries, and many animals including lizards eat the leaves.
The plant is known as "climbing saltbush" or "nodding saltbush", but both are rather unsatisfactory common names. It doesn't really climb, though sometimes it will lean a bit.If it is planted in the shade it will use the support of other plants to grow a bit higher than it would if growing in full sun.
It's a bit of a stretch to say it nods, too, though a larger-than-average raceme of heavy fruits will do it.
If grown in full sun, the plants grow in neatly rounded shapes, and as is demonstrated in the wild at irongate, in large numbers they make an effective, frost and drought hardy groundcover.
Ruby saltbush Enchylaena tomentosa, and fragrant saltbush Rhagodia parabolica are also fruiting in the reserve at present. 
The abundance of saltbushes at irongate is appreciated by the little saltbush butterfly (Theclinestes serpentata), a creature that can only breed on saltbushes. It is shown here in its favourite head-down pose.
 
There are plenty of them in the reserve, and if you watch them very closely you may notice their tendency to rub their back wings together in a circular motion. It is thought that this attracts the attention of predatory birds away from their heads, towards the rear margins of their wings, where with a little imagination you can think of the little tails as antennae, and the darker spot as an eye. It seems to work, as you often notice this butterfly and its relatives with damage on their rear wings, the part of their bodies they can best afford to lose.
As they fly, you may get a glimpse of the little patches of iridescent blue on the upper surfaces on their wings.
Their caterpillars are carefully guarded by various species of ants, including the meat ants (Iridomyrmex sp.) which are so conspicuous on Irongate’s paths. In exchange for their care, the ants “milk” the caterpillars for a sweet exudate.
Saltbushes are somewhat resistant to burning, so are desirable plants to replace woodchip mulch, where there is a concern that the mulch might lead a fire into a garden.
Obtaining saltbushes for garden use can be difficult, as they are rarely offered for sale. Growing them from seed or cuttings may be the best option.
Saloop also goes by the common name of “berry saltbush”, but this is not a very useful name, as it is applied to a number of other saltbushes as well.
Irongate Conservation Park is between Mt Tyson and Pittsworth. 
To get there from Mt Tyson, 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 (into Wallingford Road)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.

The Family Chenopodiaceae     (The Saltbush Family)   
The saltbushes which are such a characteristic part of inland australian scene, are part of a  world-wide plant family. It includes beets and spinach. Many of its members are adapted to growing in soils with high salt levels, so can be found at the seaside.
Leaves of the Australian saltbushes are edible, fleshy and often salty, though their saltiness depends on soil salt levels. The inconspicuous flowers are five-lobed, and many species have showy fruits which are edible and sweet.   
It’s an increasingly popular family, and not just because its members are happy growing in the salt-ruined soils that result from our nation’s irrigation practices. They are becoming better appreciated as good-looking easy-care garden shrubs as well.   Saltbushes are all fire-retardant. Most are outstandingly drought hardy, never needing watering once established - though just a bit in the hard times does keep them looking good.    There are 200 Australian species, of Chenopodiaceae, including some horrible weedy-looking things, and some that are unbelievably prickly.     However there are many good ornamental ones too. Most have silvery leaves which make them useful in designed landscapes, and many have bright berries. 
To find other blogs on members of this family, search for Chenopodiaceae in the white search box at the top left of the page.

 

CAN YOU PICK THE MISTLETOE?

 Amyema cambagei
 Family: LORANTHACEAE
With a careful look, you’ll find the tangled-looking foliage of a needle-leaf mistletoe Amyema cambagei among the vertical branchlets of its host bull oak, Allocasuarina luehmannii. I photographed it  this morning, out near Kulpi.
These mistletoes are flowering their little hearts out at present. they can be found on bull oaks, and on belahs (Casuarina cristata).





Here is a closer look at the flowers.There is a bit of shortage of nectar in the wild, at the moment, so these blossoms were very popular with a wide variety of insects.

The Family Loranthaceae. (The Edible Mistletoe family)




Bull Oak and its Galls
Allocasuarina luehmannii

Though not usually thought of as a tree of the eastern Darling Downs, this plant can be found here.
It doesn’t like our dominant soil types, the red and black soils, high in clay, that are derived from basalt bedrock. Geologically speaking, however, basalt is a relative late-comer to the area. It arrived here only some 35 million years ago, as lava welling up through cracks and vents, and spreading to cover an older, sandstone-based landscape, and the rich soils which have formed from it - red where they have weathered in situ, and black where they were washed further afield into what was once an upland swamp - are the soils that make our area famous.
The sandstone still shows through at the surface in some spots, though, and that is where we can find bull oaks. Some examples are: between Goombungee and Meringandan, in the Silverleigh Road area, North of Kulpi and around Peranga, and around Leyburn.
Bull oaks are distinguished from the other local members of the casuarina family by their rather open, light green, upright branchlets. Small trees look as though they have all been carefully gelled and combed upwards. Older trees may have drooping branches, but all the branchlets end with an upward lift.
A curious characteristic of these trees are these rather beautiful galls. They look like some kind of woody fruit, but are actually formed as a result of an insect, laying an egg on a branch. The tree responds by growing this surprisingly complex gall.

Cutting it open reveals a little grub. Note its cozy little cave in the gall, with a hole for excreta at the tip.

I know almost nothing about gall insects, though I am fascinated by the beauty of the galls they are able to create on their host plants. When I originally published this post, I was able to track down that the insect (see above and below) was a species of Cylindrococcus, but mistakenly thought that the tiny red insects were some kind of parasitic mite.
So I am delighted to have been set right by someone who was kind enough to write a comment saying "The insect is indeed a Cylindrococcus sp. The red guys are crawlers or the offspring of female who spends her life entombed. The crawlers exit the hole and a dispersed by wind."
 Not "mites", but babies! Isn't nature wonderful?




BULL OAKS AND SHE OAKS
What’s the difference?
Most Casuarinas and Allocasuarinas (until recently all called Casuarinas) are known as “she oaks”. This was an early colonial name, and was insulting both to the trees and to women.
The timber was thought to resemble the familiar oaks of England Quercus robur, whose hard, heavy wood was used for shipbuilding.  The timber of these colonial “oaks” however, was not good enough for that purpose, which was frustrating in a colony whose first expansion was along the coast, and which therefore badly needed boats and ships. So the local “oak” was given the derogatory appellation “she”.
The name “bull oak” defies explanation.
It usually used for just one species, now called Allocasuarina luehmannii, though in a few localities it is applied to the plant more often known as black oak, or black she oak -  Allocasuarina littoralis.
A modern myth, to be found on the internet, is that Allocasuarina species (plants whose seeds are shiny red-brown or black) are “bull oaks” and that Casuarina species (with dull grey or yellow-brown seeds) are “she oaks”. This doesn’t stand up to inspection, however. There are about 58 Allocasuarina species, and most are called “she oaks”.
So why are they “bull” oaks?
Do you know? (Tell me, if you do!)

Harlequin Mistletoe

Lysiana exocarpi
Family: LORANTHACEAE
We found this pretty mistletoe growing on Bull Oak Allocasuarina luehmannii at Lake Broadwater yesterday.

It is a delicate-looking little plant. Below, you see its haustorium, the closest it gets to having a root, at the point where the little woody branches of the mistletoe join a a small branch of its host. Like all mistletoes, it is only partly parasitic. Its own leaves produce its food, by photosyntheses, but it depends on its host for the theings that most plants get from their roots - water and minerals.

 

Its long narrow leaves are a little broader than the bull oak's branchlets, but still manage to hide themselves there very effectively. The plant is usually only noticed when it produces its gaudy flowers.
 The flowers at Lake Broadwater were later in the season than I would expect. Earlier flowers had resulted in these pretty fruits.
 
I am uncertain whether it really belongs on this blog, as I have only seen it on bull oaks near Dalby, on both sides of the Condamine - and they are plants of sandy rather than basalt soil. However it has been known to grow on a wide variety of other plant species Including some introduced ones (olives, oleanders) and on other mistletoes.
I think of it as a western mistletoe, but I am aware of an early record of it having been recorded as growing on a scrub boonaree Alectryon diversifolius at Gladfield (near Cunningham’s gap).
Can any of my readers tell me of other places on the Eastern Darling Downs where it grows?

Woolly Frogsmouth

Philydrum lanuginosum
Family: PHILYDRACEAE
Well now, here’s an unusual thing! This plant was named in 1788 from Joseph Banks’ 1770 collection, and hasn’t had a name change since! There has been so much fiddling about with the botanical names of Australian plants that it comes as a surprise to find something that has been stable since the beginning.


I photographed these plants at the Gumbi Gumbi Garden out at the University of Southern Queensland. They are fast-growing perennials, that like to grow in shallow water or constantly wet mud.

These are rather young plants. They will die back to their roots each winter, which helps them survive light frosts. Come spring, they will put up fresh leaves, and flower continuously through all the warmer months of the year.

The cheerful yellow flowers open progressively up the spike, so these plants always have some flowers on display.
In larger water bodies, woolly frogsmouth can be left to naturalise, with new plants growing from seed. It is a useful habitat plant, and helps to stabilise the banks at the waters edge.
If it is being used in a garden pond, gardeners are likely to want to reduce the size of the root - quite an easy matter - each winter. The older roots should be taken, with the more vigorous younger roots being left to grow for the next season’s display.
If grown in an underwater pot, they need repotting at the end of each season.
Fast-growing plants like this are very useful in a pond which is prone to unsightly algae. The woolly frogmouth plant’s fast growth uses much of the excess nutrient in the water, which would otherwise feed the algae. Annual removal of dead plant matter and the extra roots transfers the nitrogen to the compost heap, where it is better appreciated!