trees

After Lighthouse

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I have decided to investigate each of the fire trails that penetrate the bush and heath after the civilisation of Lighthouse Beach has been left behind.

The first is Immediately after the last ‘estate’.

So close to houses and yet still wild enough to house some surprises for me, like this fallen forked branch fully decked in what might be orchids? Healthy greenery at any rate…

There are enough older trees with hollows for other plants… and hopefully creatures…to use as homes.

Some trees are very large, like this impressive one, which I think is an Angophora. It is so grand that I am grateful it has survived; too twisty for saw logs?

There is a variety of palms to be seen from the fire trail, adding to the patterns of foliage as if by design.

There are lots of paperbarks, including those surrounding a very full and rather scummy swamp.

A few wildflowers are out but what surprised me was above my eye level: a red-flowering mistletoe in a tree. Its slender bells were more noticeable when fallen onto the now sandy ground below.

Also eye-catching was a small sawn-off stump (ti-tree?) emulating a flower.

Almost at the beach, I was halted by this shell-studded plastic rope, its bright tresses cascading down the side of a Ned Kelly sculpture, a post. Someone must have picked it up as beach flotsam and grown weary of carrying it, but I appreciated the artistic sense of the arrangement.

I did reach the sea, only to find the beach scored by 4WD tracks, even up on the higher levels where they should not be, where shorebirds might nest.

Worse than Dunbogan Beach.

But here is just south of the very popular Lighthouse Beach, and it is not long after the October weekend when thousands of extra people visited.

Still, the sea, collaborating with the sky and sun, make such a picture that I can ignore what has been done to the sand.

And the walk itself has been worth doing.

Botanica tropica

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Lake Eacham on the Atherton Tablelands is a beautiful crater lake, filled only by rainwater. Mostly blue, in parts it is this amazing green. Seen from the walk around the lake, the fact that it is likely from algae does not detract from the surprise or the beauty.

There are so many unknown plants in these forests that I can only marvel. They are always hard to photograph, as so brightly skyward dominated above, with darkly buttressed forest below.

The ‘birds’ nest’ ferns are huge, and different from what I am used to.

This is a fallen one, dead and stiff, like a woven work of art, partly finished.

This one was atypically low-growing. The Queensland I.D. group suggests it’s Basket Fern (Drynaria rigidula) which makes absolute sense.

Amidst all the greenish trunks, I kept seeing occasional ones that were eye-catchingly bright orange-red, and flaky. The boffins suggest Paperbark Satinash (Syzygium papyraceum).

Tree ferns were common near the small clear-running creeks.

The most notable plants for me were the vines, some so old and gnarled (left) as to look older than the trees they used to help them climb to the light. Others (right) had unusually papery bark, pale green and deceptively soft.

For any vine to climb so high, they cannot be too soft, as this one (left) shows, where it has forced the host tree to accommodate its growth. But mostly they seemed more flexible, with a simple hugging help-up needed now and then, (right) twisting around themselves for added strength.

Some had not yet found a host tree and had twisted every which way in the search.

At whatever stage they are, vines, like fungi, fascinate me. 

These rainforests offered me far more than blog posts will accommodate, but after this one I will leave them to their tropical wonders and return to Nature in my more southerly climes.

Fantasy forest

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Life is a struggle in the rainforest, and elaborate means are used to reach the light and to survive.

This huge Curtain Fig on the Atherton Tableland is famous, but not unique.

Once the fig had strangled the host tree, it fell over on to another tree, and the vertical roots descended to feed it, forming a curtain.

On another walk, this one showed the process of development of those curtains.

But figs are not orderly in their strangling.

Or gentle. This could look like an embrace but it has a relentlessness about it that seems cruel. Anthropomorphic, I know.

Where do root and trunk differentiate?  Incredible colours and shapes kept catching my eye in this fantasy world.

I have no idea what is going on in this miniature strangling scenario, but it seems not of this world. And is it plant or creature or something in between?

Tropical oddities

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Lake Tinaroo being man-made, there ought not to be crocodiles there, but freshwater crocodiles are in there, although not often seen.

Lake Eacham is a crater lake and it does have one freshwater croc, albeit again seldom seen.

So it was a treat to have a trail runner point out this one basking on a log near shore.

Is it yawning or smiling?

The flora discovery was that some tropical Queensland trees grow flowers out of their bark, a behaviour called ‘cauliflory’.

The wonderful resource of the Queensland Plants Identification Facebook page  revealed this for me.

Firstly this one, abundant to the point of  showiness, is Yellow Mahogany (Epicharis parasitica). 

And then on the Bumpy Satinash (Syzgium cormiflorum) was this one, spotted on several walks. These only flower every twp to five years so we were lucky. The fruits that would follow are often called ‘White Apple’.

We later saw other trees, on other rainforest walks, where the flowers were more fully open, fluffily fringed like gumnut blossoms.

In the garden of Inge’s Tinaroo home we spotted this weird green-fruited tree and discovered it is a Hairy Fig (Ficus hispida).

The fruits of these three tropical trees are naturally loved by cassowaries.

Growing on the bark makes the fruit accessible to more than high flying birds, or to opportunistic ground foragers once the fruit falls.

This sci-fi apparition is a cycad, I learn. Our Facebook boffins say it is a female Cycas ophiolitica, but out of its usual range.

As it is in Inge’s garden, it was likely planted, and she has pruned the dead leaves, so the crown we see is fresh growth, which developed very fast.

These cycads are descended from the first seed-bearing plants, around 200 million years ago, and although they look like palms or ferns, they are actually related to pines, as cone-bearing.

Tropical Queensland has opened my mind to many flora possibilities that I’d once have dismissed as fanciful.

But there were many simply wonderful plants in those forests, as well as weird ones. Next post…

Roaming ‘round Roto

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I have been told there is a track through the bushland below historic Roto House. This being a grey and bleak day, the beach does not appeal for a walk, so I aim to find that track.

I don’t, but through a deliberate gap in a netting fence I do stumble on to a patch of soggy forest.

It seems to have become a repository for the drains of the surrounding houses and for rubbish from trespassers.

It is still interesting bush, with features like this Bird’s Nest fern, the epiphytic Asplenium nidus, very low to the ground.

But it is hard to negotiate the muddy bits. And I know I’m not supposed to be here.

I retrace my steps, try the next ‘No through road’ street and find I am at the edge of the Roto House grounds.

A path skirts the lawn and scattered trees that border the wilder part, which today is alive with birdsong.

The tree trunks and tops are beautiful. The koala hospital is nearby, so I keep hoping to see a wild one in these trees, but no luck.

There are patches of colour along the way, from these fungi and from wattle that is starting to bedeck many roadsides.

There is even a strangler fig, familiar to me from my many walks though Wingham Brush. This one also houses another Bird’s Nest fern.

I am going to poke more closely around Roto House…

Wattles and wonders

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I thought I was looking at gum tree leaves, but in fact it is a wattle — Acacia implexa.

No flowers or seed pods to give me a clue, but what’s in a name with such beautiful leaves?

This decorative and dangly foliage also belongs to a wattle — Acacia vestita.

The weird and wonderful triangular leaves on this wattle caught my eye: Acacia cultriformis. New to me.

Not a wattle, but a standout in its solitude as it erupted amongst crackly lichen, is this small shrub of Western Urn Heath, Melichinus erubescens.

On the ridge top, somehow growing tall and strong amongst rocks, this tree trunk, strikingly silver and grey, presented a single elephantine foot and proud wrinkles as it branched. I am told by my knowledgeable hosts that it is a Scribbly Gum, Eucalyptus rossi.

And if a tree does not choose to have a grey or brown trunk, it can opt for green, with a little help from friendly lichen.

For here the realm of green above all belongs to the mosses and lichens, especially after a good rainy period.

They make a fabulous contrast with the bones of this country — the rocks.

Beyond green

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Camping simply and self-sufficiently for a week on a friend’s conservation property was partly healing and partly depressing, as it reiterated to me that this is the way I’d rather live.

Thousands of trees have been raised from seeds and planted here, but just near me was this self-sown grove of young Red Box, which were actually forming almost a mist of blue-green.

Amongst the blue was a surprising amount of delicate pink leaves.

Nearby were stunning trees, Coomber Stringybark, with their pendulous branches of blue leaves. This species is only found in this area west of Rylstone.

There is a lot of mistletoe here, of several species. Try as it might, mistletoe never quite manages to exactly imitate its host tree’s leaves. Apart from the colour, the shape is pretty close on this Stringybark.

This one is less successful in its mimicry.

And if the Red Box chooses pink as the perfect colour opposite to vary their leaf colours, the Angophora Floribunda chooses yellow.

So why are children taught to only colour leaves green?

Big Hill sunrise

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The short Big Hill walk is the only one here, so I head past the beach to climb that and hopefully see out to the sunrise, of which I can see delicate flushes already.

It is still half dark on the walk, and the trees arching over the track make it even dimmer. I had needed a torch when I set out.

The sea winds have shaped the cliffside forest into slanting sideways for  survival.

But then I emerge on to a side of the Hill where the sunrise can be seen through the dark trees.

There is low cloud limiting the sun’s visible rise, but it makes a beautiful bright contrasting glow with the grey sea and the dark cliff.

Before this loop walk leaves the sea to head down through the rainforest, I marvel at the rugged nature of the shore here. Steep and forbidding.

I come out the other end of the loop at the bottom of the Big Hill into brighter daylight, to find a lone Pandanus tree (Pandanus tectorius) propped on its stick legs, its unripe ‘breadfruit’ looking somehow inappropriately tropical.

Paperbarks and pandanus…

Swans and supper-singing birds…

Melaleuca moments

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At Melaleuca Campground, apart from its waterbirds, Limeburners Creek itself holds beauty in its reflections and varying channels and flows.

Not surprisingly, the Melaleucas or paperbarks were the main trees, often being embraced by what I assume were a variety of Strangler Fig.  Embraced — or throttled?

Other trees were closely held by vines, some almost as thick as the tree itself.

One tree species profusely flowering at the time was Alphitonia excelsa, Red Ash or Soap Tree.

Near the base of one was this eye-catching brightly fruiting plant, which I am told is a native mistletoe, Amylotheca dictyophleba.

Not a plant, but of an unusual colour for me, was this large Lace Monitor.  I know their colours vary, but I have never seen such yellow bands before. There were many of the familiar black and cream and spotted goannas or monitors at the camp, often four at a time lazing or waddling along the creekside or over the grass. 

They didn’t bother me, although I kept the side door of the van shut when they were about, since they climb; a panicked goanna inside the van would be no joke…

They seemed to have set times to take their turn; they would all disappear and small birds would arrive, the dainty little wrens hopping about so swiftly they seemed like leaves being blown over the grass.

Never a time without some wildlife to watch or notice; what a treat!

Urban nature

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In the busy commercial and tourist heart of Port Macquarie, the town park holds a secret behind its manicured lawns and gardens and picnic tables: the Kooloonbung Creek Nature Reserve.

As we followed a boardwalk through mangrove forests and paperbark swamps, the swarms of mosquitoes made it hard to focus on anything else, and in the heat of the day, little else moved. A young Water Dragon was a notable exception, quick to dash away.

This vine root had got itself so tangled and knotted that no dashing was being considered.

But high in the trees, the Reserve’s Flying Foxes were busy flapping their wings to stay cool.

On the industrial edge of Port Macquarie, the Googik Track offers walkers and bike riders an amazing escape into Nature. For the first part of it, the nearby traffic noise was loud and steady, an incongruous juxtaposition to what I was seeing, like these large robust and spreading  gum trees, Eucalyptus signata, Snappy Gums or Scribbly Gums.

And much scribbled-upon they were…

More of the vegetation was swampland, with paperbarks and reeds and palms large and small.

In one part, pretty lilac native flowers grew beside the track, Burmannia disticha, new to me; also found in China, India and other parts of Asia.

One plant I am now familiar with was Xanthorrhoea resinosa, the Grasstree with the underground stem, and there were thousands of them here, all past flowering, some growing really tall.

My favourite sighting was of the dainty spider web cups suspended in the reeds and still glistening with dewdrops.

I didn’t walk the whole track; I will when it’s not so hot, and perhaps not at such a busy get-to-work time of day, for the traffic.

Not sure how to reduce the number of bike riders coming up fast behind me, none dinging their bells. Isn’t that the custom when passing a pedestrian on a shared path? Especially one who might stumble a bit as she goggled at spider webs…

Local gems

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Walking in a reserve near me on the mid north coast, I spied these two little eyes peeping up at me.  The only ones I saw, prettily and symmetrically positioned beside the path, they turned out to be shorter-than-usual Fringed Lilies, Thysanotus tuberosus.

On the same walk there are many Ribbonwood (Euroschinus falcatus) trees, but I had never seen them so abundantly fruiting before. There were masses of bunches of purple/black berries. No wonder there are so many birds here.

I had seen their small flowers, some of which were still in evidence. Apparently these trees are having a bumper season for berries everywhere. Go birds!

As always, the twists and turns of vines fascinate me. Why and how?

While most trees do not twist as vines — or Angophoras — do, they can still surprise, as with this puckered trunk, radiating a pattern as it closes over a wound.

No matter how many times I walk this track, there is always something new to me. So I always carry my camera, and try not to trip up as I peer about. Such a treat, to live amongst so much natural wonderment.

Far and near

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The views from Point Lookout in the New England National Park are vast in several directions, and show how much rugged, forested wilderness we still have, in the country where the Macleay and Bellinger rivers arise.

The first day I drove to Point Lookout, there was only whiteness instead of view; the next time there were glimpses, as patches of cloud lifted. It was on my third attempt that I saw the uninterrupted views, as in the first photo, that are justly famous. But I realised I preferred the glimpses…

At the very different Wrights Lookout, from its harsh rocky world I could look back to the green forest at Point Lookout. Here trees were small wind-bent shrubs and every crevice was needed to nurture a plant.

Other walks took me to the in-between worlds, where lichen could be a restrained rosette, a single grey-green splodge on a tree trunk.

Or in the same colours, frilled fringes like oak leaves might decorate a tree.

Or small tufts and bunches of strawberry blonde might have made a home on a fallen tree.

Or a ruffle like fine lace or coral beside its mossy mates.

An endless variety!

But of course I am not abandoning my love of mosses. I close these glimpses of the treasures in this Park with a tree trunk gloriously bedecked with lumps and bumps of thick green softness.

What’s not to love?