Five-leafed Water Vine

Cissus hypoglauca
Family: VITACEAE

Another of our native grapes, like the kangaroo vine described below, this is also a very common plant in our local rainforests. It is similar in almost every way to kangaroo vine, with it’s only really obvious distinguishing characteristic being its very different leaves.  They have five, silvery-backed leaflets, arranged like the spokes of an umbrella.

It flowers a little earlier than does kangaroo vine, and its edible fruits are mostly over by June. I find them pleasanter-tasting than those of the kangaroo vine, so long as they are eaten very ripe. Some people complain that they can have the same tendency to irritate the throat. I haven’t noticed this, and it may be the case that fruit varies from plant to plant.

In the garden or as a pot plant, it can be used in all the same ways, and perhaps a few more, as it is a little hardier to drought.










 Like kangaroo vine, five-leafed water vine can get to be very large, as this photo of an ancient rainforest specimen shows.In a garden, it is suitable only for growing on a large, well-established tree, or on a sturdy pergola where it could make an attractive, bird-attracting shade plant.

Kangaroo Vine

Cissus antarctica
Family: VITACEAE
Now is fruiting time for Kangaroo vines. Probably our best-known local rainforest vines, they are potentially very large plants. Because they can grow high into rainforest canopies, we might only be aware of their presence because we find the fruits on the ground.

These can be distinguished from the similar-looking (but poisonous) fruits of the roundleaf vine Legnephora moorei  (see May 2010) by the shape of their seeds.(see May 2010) 

  Kangaroo vine’s seeds are recognisably shaped like seeds of the grapes we buy in the shops. These are true "native grapes" and can be eaten. They can irritate the throat, however, so are best not given to children.

Kangaroo vines are also common plants of rainforest edges, with foliage forming a screen right down to the ground. The leaves are very variable - sometimes toothed and sometimes not.

Note the tendrils which grow opposite a leaf - a distinguishing characteristic of plants of the grape family (Vitaceae).
The sculptural shape of the  new shoots is very beautiful indeed.
The strong stems of this vine were once used as ropes for climbing trees. The technique involved making a loop around the tree trunk and the waist of the climber, who leaned back into it and “walked” up the trunk, slipping the loop upwards with each step.
This fast-growing climber is often used in gardens for its handsome curtain of shiny leaves. It is not a small plant, however, and can easily gobble up a small garden. Where there is room, a vine can be used to cover a fences or convert a large pergola into a shady outdoor space, or left to scramble up a large tree. Kangaroo vines are also used as ground covers on large banks and road batters.
Their leaves are hardy to full sun, but the plants prefer their roots to be well-shaded or under a thick layer of mulch. They tolerate droughts and light frosts.
Confining small plants to pots does slow down their rapid growth rate, and they are very popular in America as indoor plants. Tip-pruning them turns them into bushy trailers, hanging gracefully from pots in high positions. Alternatively, they can be grown in troughs to create green screens, or trained as a green archway between rooms.

Narrow Leafed Ironbark

Eucalyptus crebra
Family: MYRTACEAE

Winter is the usual flowering time for this, our most common ironbark. These blossoms, found between Maclagan and the Bunya Mountains last weekend, are earlier than we usually expect.











The flowers are small, though plentifully produced. These are not trees that people would plant for the ornamental qualities of their flowers, but they do a valuable job of  providing nectar for insects at a time of year when it might otherwise be more difficult to find. It is a valuable winter source of nectar for bees, and produces a light-coloured honey with a delicate flavour.

The strength which makes them useful timber trees also means that ironbarks do not have the limb-dropping habit which has given Eucalypts a bad reputation in some circles. (In fact the “widow-makers” - those trees which have an unpredictable tendency to drop large limbs, comprise relatively few of the over 700 Eucalyptus species.) The hard, heavy, durable red timber of this species is used for outdoor construction purposes.




Ironbarks have a reputation as our best firewood trees, and this one is a good species to plant for the purpose. It is fast-growing where growing conditions are good, and coppices well as shown in this photo.

Coppicing (cutting a tree about 20cm above the ground) is a good practice in a woodlot, producing future crops of timber in relatively little time. The resulting multi-stemmed trees are smaller than single-trunked specimens, so coppicing is an effective way of converting a too-large tree into something more suitable for certain situations.







This hardy tree grows on a variety of soils (including poor ones), and tolerates frost and drought.
It is a koala food tree.

Yellow Buttons

Chrysocephalum apiculatum 
(Helichrysum apiculatum)

Family: ASTERACEAE 

This sturdy little perennial daisy begins to flower each year in spring, and continues through summer and autumn. These plants were still at it, in Franke Scrub last week.

A daisy head is really a bunch of tiny flowers. This can be seen from this photo, where one head is still largely in bud. In the other heads, the florets have opened up and we can distinguish each one’s five tiny petals.








The species grows in every state and territory of Australia, usually in sunny open grasslands, where it happily survives frosts, and droughts.
The plants vary from district to district. Some are sprawling groundcovers, some are bushy, and some are slender little plants. Leaf colour varies from grey to the blue-green of our local plants.
Each type is adapted to its own local soil. Many of the plants supplied in nurseries come from areas where the soil is light and sandy, and usually come with the information that they need well-drained soils. Yet the species grows naturally on our clayey red and black soils. Obviously, for best results we should be growing plants of local provenance.

Small-leaved Pennywort

Hydrocotyle peduncularis
Family: ARALIACEAE

At the other end of the size scale from last week’s plant is this dainty little pennywort. Its 1cm leaves, almost circular, have five scalloped lobes.


It’s a perennial plant which makes a pretty carpet of soft, fresh green at the water’s edge (both in and out of the water), and mixes happily with other small plants. As with all the Hydrocotyle species, the flowers are inconspicuous.

 

 Here it is with Pratia pedunculata (oval leaves and small, pale blue flowers) and Utricularia gibba. The latter is the plant with yellow flowers and green thread-like stems, an insect-eating plant which keeps the whole assemblage mosquito-free and allows me to grow water-loving plants without creating a potential disease hazard.


I planted none of them. A shallow muddy area, created in the corner of the birdbath to grow rushes, proved to be a suitable place for the others to appear. I imagine the seeds were brought in from other watery places by the birds.
(See Nov 2008 for more on Utricularia gibba)
Plant lovers can be odd people. In damper parts of Australia than ours, this pretty little native spreads into lawns, something which offends people who like their lawns to be monocultures. Many of the internet references to it, therefore, describe it as a “weed”.
Meanwhile an American plant called water pennywort Hydrocotyle ranunculoides was so valued as an “ornamental” that people have thought it worthwhile to introduce it into Australia, where it has gone on to become a watercourse-choking weed that now costs many dollars to eradicate.
You would really wonder why our own native Hydrocotyle species, attractive plants with no potential to cause environmental damage, are so rarely grown.

Large Pennywort

Hydrocotyle pedicellosa
Family: ARALIACEAE

 This common rainforest plant is one of our best groundcovers for damp, shady ground. Native only to Queensland and northern New South Wales, it is one of our most instantly recognisable rainforest plants
With a leaf diameter up to 10cm, it is the largest of our pennyworts.







Like most of the plants in this family, its flowers are not its best feature! At only 1mm, they are likely to be overlooked completely, though you do notice the flower-heads at the end of summer.









However, it is for the carpet of lush green leaves that we would grow this plant. It does best where the ground never dries out - but once established will survive for short periods in dry soil.

Pearl Vine

Sarcopetalum harveyanum
Family: MENISPERMACEAE
Some of the Friends of the Escarpment Parks found these startling fruits, while they were working in Redwood Park down near the bottom of the Range. They were all olive-brown when first found first, but are now ripening to this shade of rich, ruby red.

The plant is a female pearl vine, climber which typically produces its pretty pinkish-red flowers down low on its slender woody stems - probably because it is pollinated by some kind of insect that walks to work.
As so often happens with rainforest vines, most of the leaves of this one were too high to be seen easily. We managed to find just one to photograph.

Pearl vines have potential for use in gardens. Young ones could be used for indoor plants.