A Field Guide to our Local Wattles

 

 

 A new book by the Condamine Country Plant Group, this Field Guide contains descriptions of all 84 wattle species found in the Catchment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Condamine River rises in the Main Range above Killarney, flows through Warwick and past Cecil Plains, to end where it flows into the Balonne River west of Chinchilla. Its Catchment is a large area with richly varied ecosystems, from the red soil  of Toowoomba and the Range, through the rich black cracking clay soil regarded as classic Darling Downs Country, and on to the mixed alluvial soils, interspersed with well-drained ridges, of the Chinchilla district. The sandstone-based soil around Goombungee forms a special enclave rich in wattles, as also does traprock soil in the Durikai State Forest Area near Karara. Yet other different wattles can be found on the granite soil south of Warwick, a section of the catchment which adjoins the well-known Granite Belt of the Southern Downs.

 

 

 

 

 

Each wattle species is given a full-page description, with photographs to help with identification.

 We have found that there are two features of the book which our readers particularly appreciate.

The first is the simple key in the front of the book, which makes it easy to find the section that matches the plant they are trying to identify.

The second is that, where a wattle that looks right has been found by leafing through the appropriate section, users of the book may sometimes find that there are  two or three wattles that look rather alike. In this case, further help is offered with a "similar to" paragraph at the bottom of the page.

The books can be bought through our new website at https://www.condaminecountry.com/

The site is a bit slow to open up. Please be patient! (We are plant enthusiasts, not computer experts. We are working on it!)

 

Plants of South-east 

Toowoomba's Bushland Parks

 

 

  Released this week, the book contains photos and descriptions of 112 of Toowoomba's own local native plants. 

 

  Each plant is given a page in the book, together with a         concise description aimed at helping readers to feel confident about identifying the plants they find in the parks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The same plant species occur in a wide area around Toowoomba, so would be useful to people wanting to know what the plants are, that occur on their own properties, and our local roadsides, nature reserves etc.

The book is written and edited by the Condamine Country Plant Group, a group of four people, of whom the author of this blogsite is one. Our aim is to produce books which help local people to become familiar with our own native plants.

It was printed thanks to funding organised by the Friends of the Escarpment Parks, and can be bought from them. They can be contacted through their website at https://fep.org.au/

Should we ban Cunjevoi?

 Alocasia brisbanensis

Yesterday a petition was lodged with the Queensland Parliament, to ban this plant. 

https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-the-Assembly/Petitions/Petition-Details?id=4006

The wording of the ban requests:  the total ban of the sale, keeping, growing or removing from our rainforests Cunjevoi or Alocasia brisbanensis, Alocasia macrorrhizos plants across the state.

Cunjevoi is a well-known plant to all those who walk in the rainforests of Queensland and New South Wales. The juice of the leaves is often recommended as a cure for the sting of the giant stinging tree.

 

It is also often grown in gardens, and public parks, because it is beautiful. I see on the internet that Bunnings offers it for sale. 

The petition states: "It has been found that even a small snippet of the plant could kill an adult, child or pet in under 30 minutes." It also claims that even whippersnipping near the plants has dire effects on the person wielding the tool.

These claims are obviously overstated, but is cunjevoi really dangerous?

Yes. The book "Australia's poisonous plants, fungi and Cyanobacteria", by Ross Mckenzie, CSIRO Publishing, 2012, is one of the best guides to poisonous plants in Australia. 

It awards Cunjevoi 1 (one) star for degree of danger.

But is it really THAT dangerous? To put it in proportion, compare it with Narcissus (daffodils and jonquils), which rate 2 stars for degree of danger. Logic suggests that an even smaller "snippet" of daffodil must have the deadly effect described above.

SO SHOULD WE BAN DAFFODILS?

Well yes, if we are to be consistent, we should be regarding this as a more urgent matter than banning Cunjevoi. All Narcissus (daffodils and jonquils) rate 3 stars for weight of evidence of toxicity, and 2 stars for degree of danger.

In fact, if we wanted to get the job done properly, we should comb through that CSIRO book, and get a lot of plants banned. There are more than seven thousand of them that qualify for one star or more. If we follow the logic of banning Cunjevoi, they should all be banned. Just to name a random few, they include grevilleas,  pine trees, maples, daisy bushes, buttercups, gingko trees, pigface, oleanders, vinca, Hoya, citrus (leaves), tomatoes, heliotropes, box hedges, St John's wort, lupins, ferns of all kinds, and so on, and on, and on... 

Many of them are more dangerous than Cunjevoi. Rhubarb leaves, for example, rate 3 stars for degree of danger. So does Deiffenbachia, a plant which is also advertised for sale in Bunnings. It is an ornamental plant with leaves somewhat resembling Cunjevoi. Green tomatoes and tomato leaves rate 2 stars. Parsley, mint, and quite a few other popular culinary herbs rate 1 star. They are safe in small amounts - and so, probably is cunjevoi - but don't try it!

So why has Cunjevoi, a mere 1-star plant, been singled out for special treatment? It is hard to be certain. I suspect a lack of serious knowledge or research by the petitioner might be the cause.

The petitioner, Gary Duffy, a former One Nation candidate, is clearly a man who takes his responsibilities as a citizen seriously and wants to see wrongs righted wherever he sees them. He has made news previously with other petitions, including a petition to ban off-premise billboards (Dec 2022), and one to have repairs to the Brisbane Valley Highway, in the area where he lives, carried out to a higher standard (Aug 2023). Now he is trying for a ban on Cunjevoi.

I support his view, but only to the extent that I think it is very important that we should all be aware that any plants in our gardens, that are not normally eaten as food, might well be poisonous. This can also apply to parts of plants where other parts of the same plant are well known to be safe to eat.

But as for banning Cunjevoi?

Not really. 

Bottlejong

 Brachychiton x turgidulus

  This year is being a great year for Brachychitons. Toowoomba is aflame with Flame Trees (B. acerifolius). The large, felty pink flowers of Lacebarks (B. discolor) are looking wonderful where they have been planted along the new England Highway at Highfields, and where they still occasionally occur in the remnants of their natural rainforest habitat at Highfields and Gowrie Junction. Locally native Kurrajongs (B. populneus) are heavily in flower along the roadsides, particularly between Goombungee and Meringandan, where their nodding bells are inconspicuous until you slow down for a closer look. And our other local native brachychitons, the Bottle Trees are displaying their creamy-white flowers. The main street in Goombungee is a good place to look for them. There are also many beautiful Brachychiton hybrids, produced and marketed by those clever people in the horticulture industry, to be seen in gardens of the district.

Less familiar is the naturally occurring hybrid between kurrajongs and bottle trees. It occurs often enough to have been given its own name, Brachychiton x turgidulus, and it occurs in places where its parent trees can be found somewhere nearby. We call it a bottlejong.

Bottlejong

Its flowers take some of the characteristics of their parents. Their redness comes from the kurrajong, but they are usually redder. Compare this photo  with the kurrajongs below.

 

Kurrajong. Minimally red. Note the shorter lobes.

 

Kurrajong, tree 2. Greener flowers, with a red centre.

Kurrajong, tree 3. Strongly red flowers

 

The white backs of the Bottlejong,together with their subtle hairiness, come from the bottle tree parent. The flowers of bottle trees also vary naturally a little both in their hairiness and their colour. They can be white or cream, and may have some red speckling..

Bottle tree. A very white flower.

A different bottle tree. A hairier flower, with a few red speckles.

 In shape Bottlejongs are part-way between parents, with lobes longer than the kurrajong, but shorter than the bottle tree, in relation to the overall length of the flower. Note also the different colour of the flower back of the hybrid, in relation to its kurrajong parent. 

Kurrajong. Rounded bell, green on back.

Bottlejong, wider flowers, with whitish, V-shaped back.

The trunk of the Bottlejong is stouter at the base than the trunk of a true kurrajong (for which it is often mistaken) but not as stout as a bottle tree trunk. "Turgid" means swollen, and it is the wide trunk that distinguishes the hybrid from  kurrajong, and has given Brachychiton x turgidulus its name.

Wide flowered Kurrajong, Brachychiton x turgidulus

 

Kurrajong, Brachychiton populneus. Note the straight trunk.

Bottle tree, Brachychiton rupestris.

Because they are so often mistaken for kurrajongs until they reach the age of flowering, which may take 20 or 30 years, young hybrids go unnoticed. We are uncertain whether their leaf-shape has the same variability as their parents.  Like its parents, it usually drops most of its leaves before flowering. In its best flowering years, such as this one, the leaf-drop may be complete, with new leaves coming in as the flowers begin to die.

I only know, personally, of a few of these trees. I have been told that they are quite widespread around Toowoomba and the Darling Downs, however, so would be interested to hear from any readers who  are aware of this interesting plant.

x

 

 

 “Yellowtop” or “Fireweed”?

Which yellow daisy is which?

Senecio brigalowensis, BRIGALOW YELLOWTOP (Native, annual)
Senecio pinnatifolius var. pinnatifolius PERENNIAL YELLOWTOP (Native, biennial or perennial)
Senecio madagascariensis*, Madagascar fireweed (Non-native, annual or biennial, a serious weed)

The countryside around Toowoomba is ablaze with yellow daisies at the moment. There are three species involved, but from a distance, the plants seem almost identical.
To some people, they are all “fireweeds” and are treated as equally undesirable.
Two of the three species are native, however, and are important hosts for some beautiful and  increasingly rare native insects.  (See http://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/2017/06/mountain-katydid.html or search for Mountain Katydid, Acripeza reticulata).
So which yellow daisy is which?
It is quite easy to distinguish Madagascar fireweed from the other two species by the shape of its leaves. All Senecios have leaves of a rather variable size and shape, but if you are trying to tell one yellowtop/fireweed from the others, look for the leaves around the middle of a fully-grown plant. They will still be variable, but you can get a good idea of the most common leaf shape.
The leaves of Madagascar fireweed (Senecio madagascariensis*), are spear-head shaped, with teeth, as below:

 

The leaves of both the native species have long thin lobes, which gives them a “whiskery” look.

The leaves and leaf-lobes of Perennial yellowtop (Senecio pinnatifolius var. pinnatifolius) tend to be narrower than those of Brigalow yellowtop (Senecio brigalowensis), but there is some overlap so this is not a reliable guide. If the “whiskers” of the leaves have any very tiny teeth on the edges, you have Brigalow yellowtop, but many brigalow yellowtops have no teeth - just the long, thin, thready-looking lobes as above.
The most reliable way of distinguishing between the two natives is to count the bracts (not the petals). The bracts are the tiny green strips which make up the green cup in which the daisy flowerhead sits. You may need a good pair of reading glasses to count them, and at first though this seems like a hopeless task. 

 

However brigalow yellowtop (Senecio brigalowensis) has more than 18 bracts and in practice there are usually about 22 of them. Our local (Darling Downs) perennial yellowtops (Senecio pinnatifolius var. pinnatifolius) have only about 13. Really, by the time you are half-way round you are going to know whether the full count is going to be more like 13 or 22, so it’s not that hard after all. Can you see, by the photo above, that you are looking at perennial yellowtop? Enlarge the photo and you can see only 6 or so bracts on this side. There is not going to be room for a total of 22 altogether, so you hardly need to count them all the way round! The bracts of the perennial yellowtop also tend to be purple-tipped, but this is not always a reliable indicator.

Perennial yellowtops flower later than brigalow yellowtops, and don't tend to produce such a crowd of plants. Their petals are also somewhat longer and slimmer. Once you know both plants you will find you can distinguish them at a glance.

MADAGASCAR FIREWEED Senecio madagascariensis*
Poisonous to horses, cattle, pigs and poultry.

If you have this one, you should get rid of it as soon as you can. It can have SIX GENERATIONS of seed per season. (Native yellowtops breed at a more civilised rate, only producing one generation of seed per season.) You can see why a few Madagascar fireweed plants might turn into a rather big problem rather quickly.
To make it worse, if you pull out plants with flowers but no seed on them, any flowers can mature and produce viable seed while they are drying out in your garbage bin. The seeds have fluffy tops designed to blow in the wind, so those plants that you thought were safely disposed of will spill seed even as your friendly helpful garbo is tipping your rubbish into the truck. The moral of the story is that all Madagascar fireweed flowers, as well as seeds, should be carefully placed into a sealed plastic bag for disposal.

BRIGALOW FIREWEED Senecio brigalowensis
Poisonous to horses, cattle, pigs and poultry.
Every few years in spring we have a big flush of these flowers, and this year is a biggie. Our paddocks and some road verges are sheets of yellow. They do like disturbed land. If you want to see a really good display, drive around the northern edge of Toowoomba on the new bypass road. You will notice how the road verges are a mass of colour, but very few plants have spread to the other side of the fence. The same can happen between one paddock and the next, which tells you some things about those paddocks’ different histories or use patterns. Heavily grazed paddocks are more prone to a big flush of yellowtops.
The curious thing is that it is only in some years that we have these big flushes, and it has only been happening here since 2007. Nobody is sure why, but it probably has something to do with our changing climate.
Unless you (or you neighbours) have horses or cattle, these lovely wildflowers can be left alone for you to enjoy, and for small native creatures to feed upon. They are part of our natural Australian environment.
Don’t feed them to the chooks, though.

PERENNIAL FIREWEED (Senecio pinnatifolius var. pinnatifolius Syn Senecio lautus ssp. dissectifolius)
Not regarded as dangerous to livestock.
This plant flowers a little later in the season, and never reaches pest proportions. You will notice it scattered about in paddocks which are grazed by cattle, with no resulting problems. In a well-managed (not overgrazed) paddock, such as the one in the photo below, they are not a problem. Perhaps they taste nasty, so cattle avoid them unless they are in a situation such as a stockyard or stock route, where heavy grazing leaves them with little choice of fodder.

They are a local wildflower to celebrate. What a pity that the issue of whether or not to let them grow is so confused by their weedy relatives.

Which Greenwattle is Which?

Acacia decurrens
SYDNEY GREEN WATTLE
Acacia irrorata
CINNAMON GREENWATTLE

Family: MIMOSACEAE

Photo: Max Henderson. Acacia decurrens.

I have walked past these plants in Duggan and Hancock Parks (Toowoomba) many times, and simply failed to notice that they are not the ordinary local greenwattle, Acacia irrorata, which is a very similar plant.

Photo: Max Henderson. Acacia decurrens.

 
I wasn’t certain whether to be disappointed or delighted. Really, they are an environmental weed. However they are also a part of Toowoomba’s history - a reminder of a lost industry.
Native to the area around Sydney, their value as a source of tanbark was recognised early in our colonial history, and bark-strippers began plundering the naturally-growing plants. To ensure an ongoing supply, Sydney greenwattle plantations were established up and down Eastern Australia, to produce bark for tanning leather. They were also introduced to southern Africa and California. They have naturalised, and are spreading in many of these habitats, where they are now an environmental weed. Around Toowoomba, however, they are not aggressive colonisers, so are not an weed of any serious importance.
Whether they produced better bark for tanning than our local green wattles is doubtful. As we so often see, a certain plant becomes popular,often because it is simply better known, because its natural habitat is near a major cit. Then it planted in other areas regardless of whether there is a better local plant available. The people establishing the Toowoomba plantations would have found the seed of the Sydney greenwattle easy to obtain, and might not have even investigated the qualities of the bark of the local species, let alone wanted to pay staff to collect its seed. Here, they would have been used in our once-thriving and prosperous tanneries.

Our local Acacia irrorata is a plant with a wider natural range extending from Gympie to Gippsland. Down south, they call it “blueskin”. I have no idea why. Perhaps a southern reader will enlighten me? It is also called Cinnamon Greenwattle, because of the cinnamon scent of its leaves - a scent which is absent in A. decurrens.

As new seedlings, both species look remarkable similar. However, distinguishing the two is quite easy, even from a distance, once they have reached a metre or more tall. Acacia decurrens has a shiny, bright green look about it, while Acacia irrorata has softer-looking, non-shiny, dull green leaves. There is also a slight difference in the colour of the flowers, with A. decurrens having more strongly yellow flowers, while those of A. irrorata are a more creamy yellow.

Photo: Acacia irrorata

Acacia decurrens has a noticeable gland on the leaf-stem (petiole). Both of them have glands further along, between the leaflets, but A. irrorata has no gland on the petiole.

Photo: Max Henderson. Acacia decurrens.

 The fresh yellow growth tips also differ. Those of A. A. decurrens are usually hairless, while A. irrorata has growth tips that are softly hairy to the touch.

The tiny leaflets of A. irrorata are no longer than 5mm long. In A. decurrens they are always longer then 5mm, and can be as much as 15mm.

Which One to Grow?
Local people choosing to grow a plant species for environmental reasons should choose Acacia irrorata because it occurs naturally in the Toowoomba district. It has always been very common locally. (It is the plant that Greenwattle Street is named for.) It is a fast-growing plant with a life-span of not much more than 15 years, which makes it an excellent choice for beginning the task of restoring a wildlife habitat where the land has been cleared of trees. It is also a great plant for creating a fast windbreak, where several rows of trees are to be planted. One row could be of this species, which will be up and doing the job while the more long-lived species are getting their act together.
It attracts a very wide variety of insects, so brings in birds and other insect-eating wildlife species.

Photo: Acacia irrorata

Gargaloo - something to add

 Parsonsia eucalyptophylla 

 

I love it when a reader tells me something I didn't know.

 Jane Pye of Walgett read my original blog about this pretty, drought-hardy vine, and wrote to ask me about its tuber. Could I could confirm that it was poisonous? She added "There is a lot of it here around the old kamilaroi camps so seems odd they encouraged a poisonous vine - why not the bush banana instead? "

 Having had no idea that it even had a tuber, I was no help to her. I have never thought to dig up the roots of one and examine them. I couldn't find any botanical descriptions which mention a tuber, so perhaps no botanist has ever dug one up, either. I did find a reference that said that cattle and sheep "eat it" apparently without ill effect. Sheep are known to dig up some tubers, but perhaps this comment refers only to the above-ground parts of the plant. Could the gargaloo tubers be too deep for the sheep to find? Or perhaps the first nibble tells them that it tastes bad, so it gets left alone. 

Presumably a gargaloo which has been eaten to the ground can then regrow from the tuber.

My original blog about the Gargaloo can be found at https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=gargaloo

An article about the  poisonous tuber can be found here: https://archive.lls.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/495749/archive-vines.pdf 

Jane has an excellent blogsite of her own, which I recommend to you. You can find it at https://scartrees.com.au/

 

A gargaloo seed capsule (below).  The ripe seeds have little silky "parachutes" which help spread the seeds. Just a few of these seeds may have been lucky enough to land in a suitable spot to create a new plant.

  Gargaloo flowers have a lovely honey scent. The plants west of Toowoomba seem to me to have a more appealing fragrance than those on plants further east. They appeal strongly to butterflies.

 And finally, a photo which shows the distinctive flower shape of Parsonsia flowers - but will also appeal to the readers of a certain very popular children's book by Richard Scarry. 

 Here's Goldbug!  

(Double click on the photo to enlarge it, and you will see him.)