Ruby Saltbush

Enchylaena tomentosa
Family: CHENOPODIACEAE
Saltbushes are such useful plants, and these family members are no exception.
Like most saltbushes, they are drought and frost hardy. They can grow in nutritionally poor soils, and in soils damaged by salinisation.
They have fruits which can be eaten raw. They are quite tasty, sweet, and rich in Vitamin C. Eat them straight from the bush, or use them as a pretty garnish for rice dishes, meusli, or salads.
The plant has salty leaves which are valued as high quality stock fodder, but they can also be eaten by people, providing a good source of Vitamins C and E. There are better tasting vegetables, but in times of vegetable scarcity saltbush leaves have been valued for their ability to stave off scurvy. The quantity of salt they contain varies, depending on the amount in the soil where they grow. They need to be cooked, and boiling them briefly also removes much of the salt.
Nowadays we would throw this salty water away, but early settlers and explorers needed a source of salt, both for their health, and for preserving meat. The salt from saltbushes was valued!
In good garden soil, given a bit of care from a gardener (including some pruning), they can be beautiful plants. They have blue-grey leaves, and bright fruits for a period of many months in summer and autumn. There are, broadly speaking, two local forms; the one with ruby-red fruits, which tends to be a dense ground cover, about 1m across and 25cm high; and an orange-fruited form, which more upright and has orange fruits. However fruit colour varies considerably within our region, and a selection of these plants can provide a multicoloured show.
All saltbushes are fire-retardant. Where fire is a possible threat to homes, saltbushes could be a better choice for a ground-cover in the garden than the popular, but flammable, wood-chip mulch.

Golden Hollywood

a green fire-screen?
Auranticarpa rhombifolia (Pittosporum rhombifolium)
Family: PITTOSPORACEAE
These little trees are looking magnificent all over town at the moment. As one of the few local natives that have been planted as street trees in Toowoomba, they justify the faith of those who made the decision.
Street trees have a very tough life, so anything that can look good in those circumstances is definitely a winner as a garden plant.
Hollywoods are fast-growing trees with a tall, narrow growth habit. While they can be grown as nice little shade trees, their dense, dark green foliage reaches almost to ground level if they are left untrimmed, making them wonderful tall screens for a space only a 3-4 metres wide.
For a good privacy screen, plant at 2m apart for a good screen, and tip-prune when young for extra bushiness.)
Their roots will seek out water, so they should be kept well away from underground pipes.
They flower profusely in spring, attracting insects of all kinds (and the nesting birds, no matter what their normal diet, make use of the extra protein that this insect feast provides, at this busy time).
The bright fruits ripen after Christmas, and can last right through till next spring, opening to reveal the black fruits which birds also love.
They are drought resistant and hardy to light frosts. Their favourite soils are the red and black basalt soils.
And will they save your house from burning down?
Well, perhaps not in a fire such as we’ve seen recently in Victoria - so don’t stay at home when you ought to be evacuating!
However, they are hard to set alight, and do make a good spark-catching screen, so would be a very good choice of plant in a fire-prone area. They are certainly a much better plant, all round, than the highly flammable introduced cypresses, which are popular as screens in this district.

Spade Flower

Hybanthus stellarioides (H. enneaspermus var stellaroides)
Family: VIOLACEAE
It doesn’t look much like a violet, does it?
But this little perennial, with its bright orange flowers, is quite closely related to violets.
It is a delicate-looking little plant which loves to grow amongst grasses in redsoils (as well as sandstone and granite soils). It is easy to establish in the kind of garden that has a rough patch of rarely-mown grass, as it self-seeds fairly easily. (It also finds its way into outdoor pots, where it thrives because of the bit of extra watering.)
It is an unassuming plant whose only enemy is the over-zealous gardener who, failing to recognise it without its flowers (which are produced over a long period in summer) and weeds it out by mistake.

Zornia

Zornia dyctiocarpa
Family: FABACEAE
There are quite a few reasons for not being too fussy about having neatly mown lawns. That butterflies breed on grasses is one of them.
Another is that there are a number of pretty little native flowers, too small to be considered as garden specimens, which thrive amongst the grasses.
This little pea-flower is one of them.
A small perennial herb which spreads from a central tap-root, it goes unnoticed for most of the year. Then in summer it sprinkles the lawn with its delightful little flowers. You can identify it by the unusual compound leaf which has two leaflets, as shown in the photo.
Zornia spreads by seed, and can become naturalised over a large patch of sunny lawn. It can tolerate some mowing during the flowering season, but if you are too thorough, and mow too closely, the flowers won’t be able to set seed. It’s a good reason for putting off the chore!

Deep Yellowwood now in Fruit

Rhodosphaera rhodanthema
Family: ANACARDIACEAE
Our local deep yellowwoods are fruiting particularly well, this year. What beautiful trees they are, with their bunches of long-lasting nut-brown fruits against the canopy of dark green leaves.
If you want to try growing these seeds for yourself, you’ll need to “scarify” them. Otherwise they are slow to germinate because they have to wait for their own hard seed-coating to decay before they can get through it.
"Cut off the end with side-cutters", I was advised. I found it was more a case of gnawing away carefully with said implement, (on the end opposite the stalk) until I could glimpse the waxy grey kernel inside.
These are fast-growing trees, producing a respectable little shade tree in four years.


See my article from June 2008 for more details, and photos of the showy flowers.

Hairy Lolly Bush

Clerodendrum tomentosum
Family: LAMIACEAE
I didn’t include this shrub in my book “Toowoomba Plants...Trees and Shrubs”, despite its obvious ornamental potential. I was concerned that with use of it as a garden plant, children might poison themselves by eating the fruit.
I had come across contradictory statements - that it was poisonous, and that it was edible. I thought that the fruits smelled so foul that no children would ever be likely to put them in their mouths. A friend said that he thought they smelled like chocolate!
I still think it smells like nothing I want in my mouth, and can only suggest that you sniff some for yourselves and decide whether you think these are suitable and safe garden plants. Now is the time to do it, as the fruits are out all around the district.
The plants are not conspicuously hairy. The fine hairiness is only discovered when we feel the leaves, (They feel feel like puppy’s ears.) Hence the name. They have showy clusters of sweet-smelling white flowers in spring, followed by these even more showy fruits.
In the bush they grow as very small trees or as scruffy shrubs. At their best, though, t they are pruned to waist height, and make neat, dense shrubs. They tend to sucker, and can regrow if cut (or burned) back to their roots.
The tuberous roots were eaten by the aborigines, which I would guess might be the origin of the “edible fruit” story. Perhaps the plant found its way onto a list, somewhere, of edible plants, and someone inferred that it was the fruits that were edible. But if anyone anywhere can set me straight on that I’d love to hear from you!
The photo at the bottom was taken at Ravensbourne in February last year, (at the entry to the track at Beutel’s Lookout). It is probably in fruit there again this year.

Bugle

Ajuga australis
Family: LAMIACEAE
Here’s a little herb that’s related to lavender and salvia. Native ajuga is often grown in gardens, but we rarely see the local variety being used, which is a pity as this smaller, hairier bugle is much more drought hardy than plants brought in from elsewhere. This plant is one of many which have popped up of their own accord, in a dry and sunny spot in my own garden. We do see it around the district on hills and slopes.
It is a spreading groundcover which flowers over a long period in spring and summer, and otherwise just looks quietly ornamental with its red-backed leaves. It is typically a plant of grasslands, where it tends to scatter about, but it can make a spreading mat in good garden soil. It needs no watering, but will make a more dense mat if it’s given some occasionally, and if it’s grown in shade, where it’s leaves are a little larger.
The shape of its flowers, with their exaggerated bottom lips, tells us that the plant is pollinated by insects, which use the lips as landing stages. It is rich in both nectar and pollen and is a favourite with native bees.
It grows in full sun or part shade.