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!

Ivorywood at Anduramba

Siphonodon australis
Family: CELASTRACEAE
I saw this pretty tree on red soil at Anduramba a few weeks ago.


Having only ever seen the species growing in scrub, I was interested to see how it shaped up as a plant grown in the open, in a paddock which it shares with cattle.
It is certainly a pretty specimen, especially laden as it is with its aromatic fruit.

This plant is probably very old, despite its small size. The species is slow-growing at the best of times. It was probably not much smaller than this when the original scrub was cleared from around it, a century or more ago. Like so many dry rainforest trees, it would have the ability to survive happily, but make little growth in a rather harsh habitat like this.
Ivorywood is one of our disappearing trees, easily cleared, and taking several human lifetimes to replace.
We all love big trees, but should remember to value those which are not naturally very large. Action groups wanting to save “significant trees” are sometimes found fighting tooth and nail to save 30-year-old gumtrees, while letting ancient treasures like this disappear without a word of protest.

For more about this plant, see Dec 2009

Gumbi Gumbi Gardens

I do love a well-designed garden!

My idea of a really good garden is one which appeals not just to the physical senses, but to the mind and spirit as well.
The University of Southern Queensland in Toowoomba already has one well-established great public garden of this kind, in its Japanese Garden. It has done it again, with this Aboriginal garden. It is beautifully designed and rich with uplifting meaning and symbolism.
Even for those who choose to ignore all that, it is simply a pleasant place to be, even though it is still so very new. It is a great place to go for a stroll, watch the birds, take a picnic, bring international visitors, or just to have a snooze in the shade on a sunny afternoon.

I was delighted when I was given the opportunity to be shown around a few weeks ago. The Toowoomba Field Naturalists were given the first official tour of the garden by two of the people who were driving forces in its creation, Donna Moody and Uncle Darby McCarthy. It was a pleasure and a privilege. If you get the chance to do the same, don’t miss it, as it's very rewarding to be able to have a deeper understanding of the ideas behind the design.
I had been told that the university was building a new “bush tucker garden”, so was very interested to discover that this was a rather inadequate description. Bush tucker is certainly one of the components, but only a small part of the whole.
The plantings are all of local native species, but older existing plants of many other kinds have also been retained. This is a garden that is very firmly grounded in its own place in the world.

The Gumbi Gumbi Gardens are in the University’s “front yard”, stretching from West Street up towards the administration buildings. Parking inside the University can be difficult (though possible) on a weekday, but easy on weekends.

Joseph’s Coat Moth

(Agarista agricola)

This insect created a bit of a flutter when she was found in the seed-raising igloo at the Crows Nest Community Nursery last Thursday.
“Oh no!” we thought. "Not a butterfly laying eggs on our precious seedlings!"
On examination she proved to be not a butterfly, but our largest and most glamorous local day-flying moth. With a wingspan of 7cms, she is as large as the more familiar blue triangle butterfly,  so it is not surprising that Joseph’s coat moths are often mistaken for butterflies.

This is a female. You can tell by the large white patches on her shoulders.  Her brilliantly striped caterpillars - black, white, and orange - grow to 7cms, so could have done a lot of damage to the right kind of seedlings.
However, the Joseph’s coat moth is only known to breed on plants in the grape family, and there are none of those in the igloo. The poor girl had blundered in there and was only trying to escape.
She was carefully captured, taken home and photographed. (This picture of her showy knickers was taken through a sheet of glass.)

Then she was released in my garden, where her most common local host plant, the slender water vine Cayratia clematidea, grows. Hopefully she has found a boyfriend by now, and may be out there laying eggs as I type.

See March 2011 for more on the slender water vine.