Thursday, July 16, 2009
Vines Kill Trees
Don’t they?
People will believe the most astonishing things. I recently heard of this “reason” being trotted out as justification for killing some lovely native vines, which had been living inoffensive lives in a particularly beautiful patch of local vine thicket.
The man in question was so sure he was right, that he was surprised that his neighbours, the owners of this particular patch, were offended by his actions!
Sadly, however, there ARE vines which kill trees.
We see them in our local gullies, creek and river beds and sheltered valleys, smothering everything from giant trees to small shrubs. They prevent new plants from regenerating, so the whole area of bushland is eventually destroyed.
But not one of these killers is a native Australian plant. All the smothering vines that you now see blanketing so much of our bushland were introduced to Australia by our nursery industry as ornamental plants. No doubt they were seized upon by innocent Australian gardeners with glee, because of their cover-up qualities. What better thing to plant next to an ugly fence, a backyard dunny, or a tumbledown shed?
Many of them are pretty things, too. We still see them in gardens, occasionally, but of course no responsible person would grow one nowadays.
The most familiar of these killers, in our district, are cats claw (Macfadyena unguis-cati), balloon vine (Cardiospermem grandiflorum), Madeira vine(Anredera cordifolia) morning glory (Ipomoea species), asparagus vine (Asparagus africanus) and moth vine(Araujia sericifera). But there are plenty more of them out there, probably including some still selling in nurseries. A newly feral plant in this district is bridal creeper (Asparagus asparagoides) also known as florist’s smilax. No prizes for guessing how it came to spread around the country in the first place!
They all take to the bush with glee, preferring “disturbed” areas - a good reason for maintaining our local bushland in good health, with as little disturbance as possible and its full natural complement of native vines.
This was very good vine country, once, so any natural landscape would have contained a large variety of vine species.
And NONE of them would have been killing the trees!
Wonga Vines
Pandorea pandorana
Family: BIGNONIACEAE
Wonga vine is making a splash around the ridges at the moment. with its usual extravagant spring flowering.
A good many cultivars of this species sell in the nurseries. Their flower and leaf size varies, as does the length of flowering time. The flower colours range from yellow to white, with all shades of cream in between. Internally, they have red-streaked throats of varying intensity, and in some of them the internal red seems to have run in the wash, tinting the outside of the bell-shaped flower with pink.
However, it’s hard to beat the local native variety which can simply be grown from local seed. Its blossoms are almost pure white, with richly streaked throats.It flowers very heavily, with long-lasting flowers.
The plants buzz with insects on every sunny winter’s day, and the little birds pursue them from their hiding-places in the dense tangle of the foliage.
These are rainforesty-looking vines, but it grow in our drier vine thickets, so are both drought and frost hardy (though very young ones appreciate a bit of coddling). They will climb trees (and trellises), but if they have nothing to climb they form mad, tangled shrubs. We often see them in this form in paddocks, where they provide excellent wildlife shelterLittle plants grown from seed have lacy, delicate-looking leaves with tiny, tooth-edged leaflets. They differ so strongly from those of older plants that they are easily taken for some quite different species. They are rather slow-growing in their first few years, so need to be placed somewhere in the garden where they can be given time to reach their full beauty.
A really good old wonga vine should be a local icon, the glory of every mature garden in our district!
Family: BIGNONIACEAE
Wonga vine is making a splash around the ridges at the moment. with its usual extravagant spring flowering.
A good many cultivars of this species sell in the nurseries. Their flower and leaf size varies, as does the length of flowering time. The flower colours range from yellow to white, with all shades of cream in between. Internally, they have red-streaked throats of varying intensity, and in some of them the internal red seems to have run in the wash, tinting the outside of the bell-shaped flower with pink.
However, it’s hard to beat the local native variety which can simply be grown from local seed. Its blossoms are almost pure white, with richly streaked throats.It flowers very heavily, with long-lasting flowers. The plants buzz with insects on every sunny winter’s day, and the little birds pursue them from their hiding-places in the dense tangle of the foliage.
These are rainforesty-looking vines, but it grow in our drier vine thickets, so are both drought and frost hardy (though very young ones appreciate a bit of coddling). They will climb trees (and trellises), but if they have nothing to climb they form mad, tangled shrubs. We often see them in this form in paddocks, where they provide excellent wildlife shelterLittle plants grown from seed have lacy, delicate-looking leaves with tiny, tooth-edged leaflets. They differ so strongly from those of older plants that they are easily taken for some quite different species. They are rather slow-growing in their first few years, so need to be placed somewhere in the garden where they can be given time to reach their full beauty.
A really good old wonga vine should be a local icon, the glory of every mature garden in our district!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Silver Croton
Croton insularis
Family: EUPHORBIACEAE
Around the district, the crotons are in flower.
The flowers are interesting (to butterflies, as well as to us), but not actually particularly showy. With these plants, it is the scatter of bright orange leaves which are the main attraction. Every leaf turns bright orange before it dies, but unlike deciduous trees which use up all their glory in less than a month, crotons ration the display so it lasts all year.
New leaves are pale silver-brown, and the adult leaves all have silver backs, which show every time the trees is ruffled by the breeze. The bark is pale, too, so the overall effect is of a light-coloured tree.
These are very fast-growing small trees, suitable for the suburbs, and very useful for new gardens. When young they like a semi-shaded position and shelter from frosts.
They are equally happy in heavy blacksoil and our very lightest redsoil.
Though usually grown as single-trunked specimens, they can be pruned as a hedge, or coppiced (cut back to the ground) when they respond by producing multiple stems and re-growing as shrubs.
Family: EUPHORBIACEAE
Around the district, the crotons are in flower.The flowers are interesting (to butterflies, as well as to us), but not actually particularly showy. With these plants, it is the scatter of bright orange leaves which are the main attraction. Every leaf turns bright orange before it dies, but unlike deciduous trees which use up all their glory in less than a month, crotons ration the display so it lasts all year.
New leaves are pale silver-brown, and the adult leaves all have silver backs, which show every time the trees is ruffled by the breeze. The bark is pale, too, so the overall effect is of a light-coloured tree.
These are very fast-growing small trees, suitable for the suburbs, and very useful for new gardens. When young they like a semi-shaded position and shelter from frosts.
They are equally happy in heavy blacksoil and our very lightest redsoil.
Though usually grown as single-trunked specimens, they can be pruned as a hedge, or coppiced (cut back to the ground) when they respond by producing multiple stems and re-growing as shrubs.
More Prickly Lixy
Alyxia ruscifolia
Family: APOCYNACEAE
Since my post of last month, these plants have only become more wonderful. They always flower quite well, but this year they’re outstanding. At Gowrie Junction today my companions and I were finding the plants by following the perfume as it wafted downwind. It resembles jasmine.
The shrubs were a mass of flowers, with the orange fruits still hanging on, and this lovely plant had a good crop of lichen on it as well - a sign of a healthy environment.
(Don’t, of course, believe the rumour that lichens damage plants. They do nothing of the sort, and are so interesting and varied in themselves that their richness only adds another dimension to a garden.)
I was interested in the comment by reader Mick last month that he has some prickly lixy with black fruit, down Ipswich way. That’s a variant I haven’t heard of before.
Family: APOCYNACEAE
Since my post of last month, these plants have only become more wonderful. They always flower quite well, but this year they’re outstanding. At Gowrie Junction today my companions and I were finding the plants by following the perfume as it wafted downwind. It resembles jasmine.
The shrubs were a mass of flowers, with the orange fruits still hanging on, and this lovely plant had a good crop of lichen on it as well - a sign of a healthy environment.(Don’t, of course, believe the rumour that lichens damage plants. They do nothing of the sort, and are so interesting and varied in themselves that their richness only adds another dimension to a garden.)
I was interested in the comment by reader Mick last month that he has some prickly lixy with black fruit, down Ipswich way. That’s a variant I haven’t heard of before.
Hoop Pine Babies
Araucaria cunninghamii
Family: ARAUCARIACEAE
Hoop pines can have thousands of these babies, scattered under the trees, looking like little green dragonflies. (Double click for s closer look.) There is a great crop of them in the Boyce garden at present.
They won’t grow, these seedlings, because the roots of the parent trees exude a substance which eventually kills them off. Biochemical inhibition, it’s called.
Flindersia species (such as crows ash, Flindersia australis) can do the same thing to hoop pine seedlings. Crows ashes like to be the tallest trees in their own neighbourhood, and can prevent themselves from being shaded out by any too-close hoops. So, unfortunately, can those feral pines which escape from our forestry plantings or from private gardens. In this case, however, it is the introduced pines which are the aggressive colonists, preventing hoop pines from reproducing in what was once their own territory.
Allan Cunningham, after whom the trees are named, never did get to the site where Toowoomba now stands - but he saw it from a distant vantage point somewhere near Grantham, long before any white person reached it . He was quite excited to see his newly discovered Araucaria dominating the skyline. It must have looked something like this view at Canungra.
The Boyce Garden (corner of Range and Mackenzie Streets, Toowoomba) is the last tiny remnant of the rainforest he saw, and even its hoop pines were planted in the 20th century. It’s amazing how thoroughly we ex-Europeans have managed to exterminate whole environments, since our ancestors first settled in Australia.
Family: ARAUCARIACEAE
Hoop pines can have thousands of these babies, scattered under the trees, looking like little green dragonflies. (Double click for s closer look.) There is a great crop of them in the Boyce garden at present.They won’t grow, these seedlings, because the roots of the parent trees exude a substance which eventually kills them off. Biochemical inhibition, it’s called.
Flindersia species (such as crows ash, Flindersia australis) can do the same thing to hoop pine seedlings. Crows ashes like to be the tallest trees in their own neighbourhood, and can prevent themselves from being shaded out by any too-close hoops. So, unfortunately, can those feral pines which escape from our forestry plantings or from private gardens. In this case, however, it is the introduced pines which are the aggressive colonists, preventing hoop pines from reproducing in what was once their own territory.
Allan Cunningham, after whom the trees are named, never did get to the site where Toowoomba now stands - but he saw it from a distant vantage point somewhere near Grantham, long before any white person reached it . He was quite excited to see his newly discovered Araucaria dominating the skyline. It must have looked something like this view at Canungra.
The Boyce Garden (corner of Range and Mackenzie Streets, Toowoomba) is the last tiny remnant of the rainforest he saw, and even its hoop pines were planted in the 20th century. It’s amazing how thoroughly we ex-Europeans have managed to exterminate whole environments, since our ancestors first settled in Australia.
Palm-lilies
Cordyline petiolaris
Family: LAXMANNIACEAE
These plants are fruiting prettily out at the Bunya Mountains at the moment.
Despite their common name, they are neither lilies nor palms. They are in the agave family, and are closely related to the imported Dracaena plants which are so popular in gardens. The locals are much more environmentally friendly, of course.
They are wonderful in a shady garden for a cool green effect. They grow quite fast fast to about 2 metres in height, then, slowing down, can get as high as 7 metres (though this great height is fairly unusual, and the result of growing in low light and needing to stretch to get their fair share).
In spring they have generous panicles of lavender flowers, which are followed by these red berries.
Like so many of our local plants of the dry rainforests, they cope well with drought - but do look their best, and grow faster if given water and a bit of fertiliser
In the wild they grow under trees, and do well in a similar situation in a garden. Being narrow plants they are also very appropriately fitted into the narrow strip between suburban houses, particularly in situations where there’s not a lot of sunlight. They are effective in courtyards, or as indoor plants, sculptural lines looking particularly good with modern architecture.
Family: LAXMANNIACEAE
These plants are fruiting prettily out at the Bunya Mountains at the moment.Despite their common name, they are neither lilies nor palms. They are in the agave family, and are closely related to the imported Dracaena plants which are so popular in gardens. The locals are much more environmentally friendly, of course.
They are wonderful in a shady garden for a cool green effect. They grow quite fast fast to about 2 metres in height, then, slowing down, can get as high as 7 metres (though this great height is fairly unusual, and the result of growing in low light and needing to stretch to get their fair share).
In spring they have generous panicles of lavender flowers, which are followed by these red berries.
Like so many of our local plants of the dry rainforests, they cope well with drought - but do look their best, and grow faster if given water and a bit of fertiliser
In the wild they grow under trees, and do well in a similar situation in a garden. Being narrow plants they are also very appropriately fitted into the narrow strip between suburban houses, particularly in situations where there’s not a lot of sunlight. They are effective in courtyards, or as indoor plants, sculptural lines looking particularly good with modern architecture.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Hairy Boonaree
Alectryon pubescens
Family: SAPINDACEAE
I was rather pleased with this hairy boonaree fruit which I found on a little tree in Franke Scrub, Cawdor, yesterday. They don’t fruit often, so it was good to be able to see its velvety capsule - the thing which distinguishes it from the very similar common scrub boonaree, A. diversifolius (see February 08)
The hairy boonaree is at the southernmost edge of its range, on the Darling Downs, and is not very common here.
Both these boonarees have very variable leaves, and similar showy “rooster’s eye” fruits. The leaves (and fruits) of A. pubescens are larger, but it can be difficult to be sure which of the two plants you’re looking at, as there’s considerable overlap.
Like all the Alectryons they have these bright red "cockscomb" arils, which swell when the fruit is ripe, bursting the seed capsules in half, and throwing off the little "cap". The beedy little rooster's eye seeds are almost completely surrounded by the aril, whose bright colour attracts the birds which eat the seeds and then "distribute" them to grow away from the parent tree.
This huge leaf was unusual even on the tree where I found it last year, on Mt Kynoch. I didn’t confirm the ID at the time, but it is probably another specimen of A. pubescens.
Family: SAPINDACEAE
I was rather pleased with this hairy boonaree fruit which I found on a little tree in Franke Scrub, Cawdor, yesterday. They don’t fruit often, so it was good to be able to see its velvety capsule - the thing which distinguishes it from the very similar common scrub boonaree, A. diversifolius (see February 08)
The hairy boonaree is at the southernmost edge of its range, on the Darling Downs, and is not very common here.Both these boonarees have very variable leaves, and similar showy “rooster’s eye” fruits. The leaves (and fruits) of A. pubescens are larger, but it can be difficult to be sure which of the two plants you’re looking at, as there’s considerable overlap.
Like all the Alectryons they have these bright red "cockscomb" arils, which swell when the fruit is ripe, bursting the seed capsules in half, and throwing off the little "cap". The beedy little rooster's eye seeds are almost completely surrounded by the aril, whose bright colour attracts the birds which eat the seeds and then "distribute" them to grow away from the parent tree.
This huge leaf was unusual even on the tree where I found it last year, on Mt Kynoch. I didn’t confirm the ID at the time, but it is probably another specimen of A. pubescens.
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