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.)

Python Tree

Gossia bidwillii. 

 
Australia specialises in trees with beautiful trunks. This is one of our loveliest.

 

It is a small tree. For the most part it is found in vine scrubs and dry rainforests along the range, but also occurs in the remnants of the Gowrie Scrub, a once-large scrub which stretched from Highfields and North Toowoomba through Gowrie Junction to Kingsthorpe and beyond. It is very suitable for suburban gardens.

Its name comes from the smooth mottled python-like trunk, which is cool to the touch even on a hot day. (Some people call it “refrigerator tree”. ) Its shape often suggests muscles under the skin. The specimen below, which has obviously had a hard early life, shows these “muscles” to an exaggerated extent.

 

The distinctive upper roots at the base of the trunk are often exposed, and are a feature which helps you identify the tree in the wild.

 

The shiny green leaves resemble lillypilly leaves, except that they have red-brown twigs, which help you to to distinguish them.

 

They are a brilliant, translucent red when new, and make a great show in the garden.

 
Python trees have juicy, edible fruits. 

 

If you pick one in the wild to try, don’t forget to plant the seed in a suitable spot after you have sucked it clean. This species is in decline, and would appreciate the little bit of help to produce the next generation.

Talking about Leaves

Botanical jargon can seem off-putting to a beginner, but it is worth the trouble of learning a bit of it. Knowing some of the botanical words makes aware of what details about leaves to look for, and the more we know about what to look for, the more details we notice.

So let’s start with a few easy botanical terms, and what they mean.

Alternate or opposite leaves?
If you’re looking at a plant and wondering what it is, this is one of the first identifying features to look for.

Opposite simply means that the leaves are in pairs. Here is a specimen of a local climber with opposite leaves.


Stiff Jasmine, Jasminum simplicifolium - for more details on this plant see: https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=pearls

Alternate means the leaves are joined onto the twig (botanical term: branchlet) one at a time, not in pairs. The plant below has alternate leaves along its slightly zig-zagged branchlets.


Scrub Wilga, Geijera salicifolia - for more details on this plant see:
https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=bone-chilling.

Simple or Compound Leaves?

This is a little trickier. A simple leaf is never divided into leaflets. Simple leaves come in a lot of different shapes, but there is always is just a single leaf-blade, joined directly to the branchlet. The Jasmine and the Wilga above have simple leaves.
So does the plant below - and you will notice that they are opposite.


Red Olive-plum Elaeodendron australe var. integrifolium, - for more details on this plant see:
https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=olive-plum

Another local with simple, opposite leaves is this one.


Small Fruited Mock Olive, Notelaea microcarpa - for more details on this plant see:
https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=Rosenthal

This one has simple, alternate leaves:


Scrub Boonaree, Alectryon diversifolius - for more details on this plant see:
https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=dormitory

And here’s another one which also has simple, alternate leaves:

Breynia, Breynia oblongifolia.

Instead of being simple, leaves can be compound.
This means that the leaf is divided up into sub-leaves (botanical term: leaflets). This cam be confusing, because leaflets look rather like leaves!

The picture below shows ONLY THREE leaves. They are the kind called compound leaves, rather than simple leaves.


White Beetroot Tree Elattostachys xylocarpa - for more details on this plant see: 
https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=multiple-trunked

Two of its leaves are divided into five leaflets each, and the other leaf has only two leaflets.
You could mistake those leaflets for simple leaves, couldn’t you?



 White Beetroot Tree Elattostachys xylocarpa

The difference can be seen by looking at the join between the leaf-stalk and the branchlet. (The botanical term for this join is “axil”.) Can you see that there is a shoot coming from the axil? Only leaves have those shoots. There is never a shoot at the base of leaflets. The position of the shoot tells you that you are looking at compound leaves.
  
(And did you notice that this plant has alternate leaves?)

So does this one below - and its compound leaves are very large.

Deep Yellowwood, Rhodosphaera rhodanthema, - for more details on this plant see: https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=deep+yellowwood
 
Note the tiny shoot in the leaf axil, by my finger. The shoots in leaf axils are sometimes just very small points, so you need to look carefully for evidence that this is a compound leaf.

Also note the white sap oozing from the places where I have snipped off leaves, so I could show a clear photo of a single leaf. Relatively few trees have white sap, so this is an important identifying feature. (I washed my hands afterwards, an important precaution after handling this kind of plant.)

White beetroot tree and Deep Yellowood have the kind of compound leaves called pinnate leaves. Pinnate is a word about feathers. Can you see how the leaves in the photo above are arranged a bit like a feather - with a leaflets lined up on either side of the central rib, like the barbs of a feather? The central rib of the leaf is called the rachis. (Pronounced RAH-KIS) The strong central spine of a feather is a rachis, too.

Trifoliate Leaves
Here is another plant with compound leaves. In this case, its leaves are opposite.

Triple Leaf Jasmine, Jasminum didymum subsp. racemosum - for more details on this plant see:
https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=didymum
 
Despite its deceptive common name, it is the leaflets that are triple, not the leaves. If you look closely (double click on the photo) you can see the beginnings of shoots in the leaf axils.

Plants with compound leaves, having three leaflets arranged in this pattern are called “trifoliate” (or some people prefer “trifoliolate”, which is such a tongue twister that the word is dropping out of use, despite its being more correct). So the jasmine above has opposite, trifoliate leaves.

Here is another example of compound leaves which are trifoliate.

Tingletongue, Dinosperma erythrococcum. 
 
Can you see that there is a tiny shoot at the base of those trifoliate leaves? And that the leaves are opposite?

Now for a plant family - one with spikes.
A word that helps you identify quite a few of the trees in our local scrubs and dry rainforests is Sapindaceae, (Usually pronounced SAP-IN-DAY-SEE)
It is the name of a plant family, and we have an unusually large number of its members here in our local area. They all have alternate leaves. A few, (like the Scrub Boonaree) have simple leaves, but most of our local Sapindaceae have pinnately compound leaves.
Members of this family can be picked out from other plants with pinnate leaves by a small spike at the tip of the rachis, just where the top leaflet-stem joins on.


Scrub Boonaree, Cupaniopsis parvifolia. FAMILY: Sapindaceae

 You will also find spikes on the rachis-tips of a plant we looked at, earlier in this blog.

White Beetroot Tree Elattostachys xylocarpa.  FAMILY: Sapindaceae

We’d better have a closer look


 White Beetroot Tree, Elattostachys xylocarpa. FAMILY: Sapindaceae

And here's another member of the Sapindaceae family.



Pitted Coogera, Arytera foveolata. FAMILY: Sapindaceae
 
The spikes at the tip of the rachis, of its pinnately compound, alternate leaves, are rather blunt.
 
 
Pitted Coogera, Arytera foveolata. FAMILY: Sapindaceae


Looking at the back of the Beetroot Tree's leaflets, you can notice another interesting feature.


White Beetroot Tree, Elattostachys xylocarpa.

There are little hairy pits, at each junction of a side vein with the main central vein,. These pits are called domatia. The word means “little homes”, and that’s exactly what domatia are.

White Beetroot Tree, Elattostachys xylocarpa.
 
Domatia are good investments for the trees that have them. They have evolved these structures so they can be landlords. Small mites move in, and “pay their rent” by preying on small insects which would otherwise eat the leaves.

Some species of plants have them, and some don't. Where domatia are present, they give another clue to the identity of the plant.

These leaves also have domatia.

Pitted Coogera, Arytera foveolata. 

You could easily overlook them, couldn't you? If you double-click on the photo they will be easier to see, and now that you know the word, domatium, perhaps you will look with more interest at the backs of leaves and leaflets.

And I hope that you will be more aware of whether leaves are alternate or opposite, and whether they are simple or compound. If they are compound, you can look to see whether they are trifoliate or pinnate. If they are pinnate you can check  whether they are members of the Sapindaceae family.

What else can you learn about leaves?

TRIPLE-LEAF JASMINE
Jasminum didymum subsp. racemosum
FAMILY: OLEACEAE

This common local plant is one of our four local species of jasmine. A mature plant produces large numbers of tiny, fragrant white flowers in summer, and is a favourite feeding spot for insects including various species of native bee.  The dense foliage offers good nesting sites for small birds, which are also attracted by the insect smorgasbord, and the fruits, which ripen to black.



When I planted it twenty years ago, my idea was to cover this trellis with the jasmine to make a
screen.

 

As you can see, the jasmine had other ideas!  Despite failing to gain the neat screen I had planned for, I have since grown to love the plant’s non-conformist shape. Almost completely concealed in the above photo is a native beehive, appreciating the shade in the heat of summer.



In autumn, I give the jasmine a trim to let in the sun. The hive is situated on the eastern side of the trellis with a northern aspect, so it is snugly situated to pick up the winter sunlight until mid-day, while sheltering from our cold August winds.



 The triple-leaf-jasmine was slow to grow in its first year or two, and I planted some desert jasmine (Jasminum didymum subsp. lineare) on the same trellis. It is still there, but a little difficult to find among the much greater bulk of its broader-leafed cousin’s canopy.





This jasmine (and probably most of the other jasmine species) is happy to be refreshed by hard pruning. I recently decided it was time to take my plant back to basics, because I was concerned that its weight might be putting too much strain on the twenty-year-old trellis. I trimmed it down to its woody skeleton. What I learned from picking up the clippings was that despite their apparent bulk, the weight was negligible and I need not have worried. What an excellent plant this would be for a rooftop garden or large balcony - the size of a substantial shrub, but without the weight.
I removed every scrap of leaf, and for a few weeks I worried that I had overdone it. What it I had killed my beloved jasmine?!!  To my relief it has bounced right back.




As the photo shows, it is still stubbornly determined to make its bulk at the top of the trellis. Meanwhile I have cut off its flowering stems for this summer, so will have to wait another year for flowering. A gentle trim no later than March should help the new growth to thicken up still more, and give the plant time to put on a good insect-feeding display next summer.

In the wild, This jasmine often grows as a tangled shrub-like thicket, providing shelter for wildlife of many kinds. the photo below, however, shows one which has used a shrub - long since dead - as a trellis. The result is a little jasmine tree, something that could be reproduced in a garden, with the right kind of support.

 

SWEET JASMINE

Jasminum dianthifolium
(Jasminum suavissimum)
FAMILY: OLEACEAE
 


This little plant, like all the jasmines, can be a twiner with the ability to climb. However it can also spread underground, and is more often seen as a small, low-growing plant in grasslands. Its substantial underground root system means that it can withstand grazing, and (as seen below) attacks by a Council grader. What seem to be a group of plants in the picture probably comes from a single root.




It has what I think is the best perfume of all the local jasmines. You might like to compare it with the other local jasmine species (Jasminum simplicifolium,  Jasminum didymum subsp.  racemosum,
Jasminum didymum subsp. lineare, and the natural hybrid, Jasminum simplifolium x suavissimum), to find your own favourite. The perfume is strongest in the evenings and early mornings, which is typical of moth-pollinated flowers.




Provided they are found by pollinators, the flowers will be followed by small, succulent black fruits, which appeal strongly to small birds.

In a garden, the best situation for this plant might be an a mulched shrubbery, where it can wander at will, popping up wherever it likes. However it can be grown in many situations, including in a pot where it can be left to trail over the edge, or provided with a tiny trellis. Once established, it can be pruned as hard as you like to help it to grow into a bushy plant.

It likes the dappled light among trees, or a situation where it gets sun for only part of the day,  and tolerates all soils except heavy poorly drained clay.  It survives frost by dying down to its roots, regrowing in spring. Its lifespan is not known, but you can expect it to be long-lived.

Is Cullen tenax seed edible?

I was asked this question after my post on Cullen species,
 https://toowoombaplants2008.blogspot.com/search?q=Cullen+tenax

None of my bushfood books mention it, but I found several internet references to recipes for using the seeds in cooking (a cake, and biscuits).

I could find no references to aboriginal use of it, or to any testing having been done to establish the safety of eating the seeds.

I am aware that enthusiasm for bushfoods has led to some experimentation with foods that may not be safe to eat, so would not suggest that anyone do it, without having some further knowledge.

Can anyone help us here?

A LATER NOTE:

I would like to draw readers' attention to Comment 5. 

I suggest that anyone considering eating seeds of any Cullen species looks up the Wikipedia article on the subject of furanocoumarins. If you are taking medications, you might also wish to read this one:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3589309/

If you have read the article recommended in Comment 5, you will notice that one of the furanocoumarins contained in Cullen seeds is psoralen, which also produces phototoxic reactions (such as increasing the tendency to get sunburned more easily, or suffer eye damage from sunshine).

For me, the problem is that there seems to be (as yet) no research on how much or how little Cullen seed it takes, to get negative effects. I suggest that readers who wish to eat Cullen seeds do your own reading, and decide for yourselves whether you do or do not regard them as a risky thing for you to eat.

As always with such relatively untried foods, however, I do recommend that you don't give them to children.

 

Devil’s Marbles

Eremophila debilis
FAMILY: SCROPHULARIACEAE (MYOPORACEAE)

Down south, this plant is known as Winter Apple - and that’s when it usually fruits.

However, like so many of our local native plants, Devil's Marbles is an opportunist. By means mysterious, it decides when its chance of producing a new generation is at its best, and this year it has chosen February. I would love to think that it "knows" rain is coming!

For those who would like to grow this useful and hardy ground cover plant, now is a good time to look for fruits on your properties and on roadsides.

The best technique is to plant one seed per small tube, in good-quality potting mix. Cover it to a depth equal to the diameter of the seed, and keep it damp until it germinates.  Some people say they have good results if the flesh is left on the seed, but I prefer to remove it. You can do this by sucking your seed clean. This is regarded as a bush tucker plant, and is quite safe. I leave it to you to decide whether you like the flavour, which I find quite acceptable (if unexciting) provided the fruit is very ripe.

Once the plants have reached a good size, they are can be planted straight into the garden.

To find a more detailed article about this plant, use the white Search box at top left.