trees

Tia up close

by

From the little bridge across Tia Creek above the Falls, you can see the water weeds waving gently with the current of the mysteriously cloudy water.

Slightly above that the water is more calm, the banks higher. I keep an eye out for platypus, as they have been seen here, but I have no luck.

Like the slopes of the Gorge itself, the scattered creekside rocks are aslant, rough and layered.

Several sorts of lichen choose to adorn a few, softening them visually at least.

On the longer Tiara Walk, the post-fire tree regeneration is the main feature, apart from the views over the Gorge, of course.

Such glimpses never fail to astonish me; so close, so extreme, and here I am meandering along the top beside it, as if the land extended safely forever.

But in between, my attention keeps being drawn to the bright new growth of some of the young trees, glowing like firelight amidst all the black and grey.

Others are purple and magenta on the backs of the new leaves, commanding attention with their colours before the mature sage green.

Hard to keep watching where I walk, to avoid tripping, amidst so much to see. \

But I do; a fall when bushwalking, especially when on your own, is no fun… as I learnt at Gibraltar National Park!

Beyond trees

by

The woodland edging Tia Gorge is scrawny, still struggling to regrow after the fires.The top branches of most remain twiggy claws.

Yet one subzero morning those bare claws were transformed, silver-coated, sparkling like crystals as the sun hit them.

At first I was unsure what I was seeing. Frost to the treetops? On the tin roof of the one structure at the camping ground, the longdrop toilet, the melting frost did not sound like raindrops, but small hail. Then shards of ice began skidding onto the cement floor as they were loosened by the sun from their high perches.

Grwing up in a coastal hinterland valley, I had seen plenty of hard ground frosts, but not tree-high ones, so this was a new experience for me.

How lucky to be here for such an event; common for locals no doubt, but like magic for me. A wave of the wand and …  filigree silver above me!

The many dead trees had other ways of making themselves beautiful, like bedecking themselves with fluffy lichen, dainty as pear blossom.

Even the now defunct epicormic tufts of shoots that had appeared from under the blackened bark after the fires were decorative. This was one tree that they did not manage to save.

And, never least, fungi! A whole colony, white to cream to amber, studded this single rough-barked elder.

Diversity and beauty in survival, despite clearly devastating bushfires, in this tablelands woodland.

Water based

by

With the rain we have had on the coast, the paperbark swamps are filling again and the reeds are extremely vigorous. Their grey-green clumps make fabulous vertical contrasts against the less constrained shapes and paler colours of the trees.

So unconstrained are the paperbarks that these two appear to be dancing with each other, hands almost touching, bodies bent as if inclined to do so too.

Some of the older trees have gone full out for individuality of shape, declining verticality and choosing the horizontal.

Beside one swamp on the Coast walk I could see a different reed, feathery, more free form.

I realise it is one I have seen in Kattang, but it confused me by growing taller here.  Baloskian tetraphyllum, Tassel cord reed.

As I remember by impressions rather than botanical details, I am easy to fool!

Patterns

by

The endless variety of patterns that sea and sky and sun can create mean one must always keep a sharp eye out for the ephemeral combination they may offer.

As each wave recedes, I am mesmerised by these fleeting puffs of sand, ringed with bubbles like smoke rings. What causes them?

Equally inexplicable to me are the convoluted circles of lace patterns in the waves’ foamy wash, seemingly unrelated to rocks.

Or these club-handed clouds, offering what, beseeching whom?

I love the patterning made by Horsetail Casuarinas, drooping gracefully in fine line silhouette. I also love the shade they offer…

While I love mirror-like reflections, I appreciate these artfully broken reflections as the tide ripples up this creek.

Pair the magic of light through leaves with still water and you have incomparable patterns. 

I drink in all these chance pairings, and hope I never fully lose my sight, for to be deprived of all these beauties would be a loss indeed…

Celebrating trunks

by

Trees are determined survivors. Their trunks will grow around a lightning strike or a bush fire burn … and just keep heading up, with diminished resources.

And if they do not survive, they can become objects of sculptural beauty and home to vivid lichens.

Some trees choose not to head upwards, but outwards, unsure whether they want to be part of the river or the bank.

Planted in rows en masse in a state forest, their trunks offer changing patterns of light and shade.

I know bamboos are grasses, not trees, but you can’t call their hefty ‘stems’ other than trunks. 

Clumplng bamboo like this never fails to impress me with its sheer size and solidity… and how useful a material it is!

And when it’s the yellow variety, it makes a veritable clump of golden poles.

Even tiny trunks give vertical definition to low growing plant treasures like the shy Maidenhair ferns on this bank.

While seemingly growing in rocks, this young Casuarina is already adapting to the river’s changing flows, growing south with it in floods and then recovering to head skyward.

I wish it luck.

Aussie Autumn display

by

Banksias are inherently surreal plants and trees, and right now, in our Autumn, the coppery coloured new leaves, toothed and outstretched, and the huge variety of flower cones at different stages, like this baby one, are truly painterly.

Some of the new flower cones are as pure and slender as church candles.

Others have decided to limit development to hemispherical powderpuffs, albeit spiky ones, rather than the typical elongated cones.

Only one branch of this Angophora floribunda was flowering, but in such profusion that its heady scent — more butterscotch than honey, I thought — wafted farther than its close proximity. That branch was a long arm, arching far from the tree trunk, contorting in the manner of its family.

The Blueberry Ash trees (Elaeocarpus reticulatus) were festooned, not with flowers, but with hundreds of tiny blue berries like scraps of sky.

Some Lillipillis were showing off by displaying both flowers and fruit.

It being Autumn — Keats’ ‘season of mellow fruitfulness’ — the Pittosporums were laden.

And who needs flowers or fruit when you have such gorgeous spiralling growth itself? The low growing  Caustis flexuosa or Curly Wig is common in this reserve, and always remarkable.

Easy access greens

by

At nearby Washpool National Park you wind down to Bellbird rainforest campground, surrounded by tall trees and deep shade.

There is an easy walk to Coombadjha Creek, designed for wheelchair access, so perfect for me in my fragile rib-clutching state.

And beside that path there are many rainforest wonders to be seen, like this gorgeous tangle of roots and greenery.

Another uses the exposed roots as protective frames for pockets of moss.

Other mosses need no protection as they cover this fallen tree like a thick green furry pelt. So strokable!

The creek itself is beautiful, and restful, with still pools between small rushes and falls. So restful that I sit there for ages… and listen… and think.

The rocks always draw me in, and this one seemed so generous, with native violets thriving along its one crack.

Many cracks in this work of modern art, moss-topped and lichen-splashed. Couldn’t find the artist’s name…

High country survival

by

Gibraltar National Park is an easy drive inland from Glen Innes, on the Gwydir Highway. It is a high country of rocks of all shapes and sizes, so these tall granite columns, called The Needles, were the aim of the first walk I chose to do from where I was to camp for three nights at Mulligans Campground.

The view from the lookout was spectacular, but as always, my eye was drawn to detail, and there were several of these striking plants in flower. Commonly called Native fuschia, Epacris longiflora, I am informed.

The walk out to there goes through mostly rainforest, where the damp fosters fungi and I kept checking for hitchhiking leeches.

Back up on the heights, the regrowth of shrubs and trees was heartening amongst all the blackened trunks.

Not all the Xanthorrhoeas had survived, and many looked like amputees.

The walk was meant to be a two-and-a-half-hour one of medium difficulty; there were quite enough inclines for me, and some rocky scrambles where I feared to turn an ankle.

But up top, for long stretches, Dampiera purpurea formed an avenue beside the path, showing their pretty mauve flowers, the plants often as tall as myself.

I had missed the main flowering of the Gibraltar Range Waratah (Telopea aspera), but enough bright remnants remained on the tall stems to signal their past glory.

But this Park for me was less about flowers than lichened rocks and survivor trees, about blacks and greys and browns.

The lower storey of next generation greens was hopeful, but the tough oldies showed they were not to be taken lightly.

Unfortunately this oldie tripped and fell flat out when almost back at the campground, landing on my camera, which had been slung around my neck and shoulder.  Neither soft flesh nor fragile ribs are a match for such a hard object. So part of me was purple and black as an aubergine (only not as firm) and I could do no more long walks for the week. But I know I was lucky not to break a wrist or wrench a knee… so let’s say The Needles were worth it.

I did survive to wince and do tiny walks, and will return another time to do all those other walks.

Riverside life

by

At The Bluff campground in Mt. Boss State Forest the Wilson River audibly dominates, rushing over and around huge boulders.

There are very few places to walk except along the dirt road in, or risk twisting an ankle on the round riverside rocks.

But alongside that track I was delighted to see this Spangled Drongo darting about in the regrowth bush. 

I have always loved the name (!), and I am grateful for the distinctive mermaid tail that allows even me to identify it from a distance.

That track also offered several botanical treats, like these pink Stylidium, Trigger Plants, which snap to release pollen when an insect touches them.

One area was generously strewn with these Ground Lilies, Tripladenia cunninghamii, which I had only been shown recently, in Kattang Nature Reserve on the coast. These were perhaps a paler blue, but unmistakable.

And even more generously, this bank carried the daintily lacy Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum). always a sight that makes me smile. Why? Maybe because it is so gentle…

The Bluff itself runs steeply down into the river, with a spectacular wall of Xanthorrhoea on one face.

Nothing gentle about this, but certainly impressive.

Designed by Nature

by

On a cliff edge in Kattang Nature Reserve is a most amazing and unique sight. A colony of dome-shaped casuarinas, Casuarina glauca in a prostrate form endemic to this reserve. ‘Discovered ‘ here in 1998, several cultivars of it are now grown for use in garden rockeries especially. The Australian Botanic Garden at Mt Annan grows one called ‘Kattang Karpet’.

I first thought of creatures like the elusive Foo cartoon character of my childhood, then the hairier Iggles, like ‘puzzled coconuts’, that appeared everywhere, and then the Grug picture books of my children’s time.

I found it difficult to see these as inert, related to the Casuarina trees we know; they do sucker and spread, so these colonies may be just a few actual plants. I kept expecting one to get up and meander off, as Grug would.

These little plant creatures were the highlight of the walk, but not the only shape surprise.

At one lookout, a proper casuarina tree was pretending to be a steep hillside, but instead was hollow, its foliage growth pruned at that angle by the sea winds, as neatly and sharply as if by an obsessively operated hedge trimmer.

Away from the cliff sides, these beautifully simple mauve flowers on small and low plants proliferated along a protected part of the path: now called Tripladenia cunninghamii, it was formerly named Kreysigia, and is often called the Ground Lily. A first sighting for me, so a walk full of new experiences.

I value Kattang highly as such a special and ever-changing place with many different ecosystems ready to surprise me on every walk. 

Little Fella details

by

In the Big Fella Gum Forest Reserve, whose mighty trees I admired last post, I was also intrigued by many of its small details.

Like the beautifully delineated shield-like leaves of this young Prickly Supplejack (Ripogonum discolor) which starts out looking as if it’s a shrub then becomes a strong climber. The sailors/Jack Tars on early voyages called it Supple Jack because of its climbing ability, and many parts of the plant are useful.

The few bright new leaves of this tree, Maiden’s Blush, (Sloanea australis) caught my eye several times. The name refers to the colour of its heartwood as well as its young leaves.

Even brighter were these very, very tiny red fungi hiding amongst the deep leaf litter. The water-logged ground beneath was soft, especially near the creek, and I sank several times… but I only attracted one leech.

Other fungi were larger and in the less-noticeable shades of brown.

Although this shelf fungus was so large that it drew attention without vivid colouring except for its white underside.

The extended roots of the big Turpentine were mostly buried under leaves, but this noticeable hump in its progress is clearly being used as shelter.

Unusual shapes and patterns in Nature always fascinate me, as did this small ladder of bark mouths or kisses, the origin of which nobody knew.

And if one tree was puckering up, another was choosing to send its green passenger growing sideways.

This palm chose to cascade its moss from a slit in its decorative lichen-splotched trunk.

And as a final show, in the unbroken depths of this rainforest pocket, a fallen giant lay shrouded in rich green velvet, decaying in beauty while nourishing the earth beneath.

No wonder my spirit itself feels nourished after such an excursion, fed with new sights and understandings, enlightened by others who know so much about our flora.

Secret survivors

by

Tucked away behind Kendall is an almost forgotten green wonderland, the Big Fella Gum Forest Reserve. Under the management of the Forestry Corporation, it is neither easy to find nor to find your way once inside it. There are small decaying timber markers at ground level, marked with arrows, once red… and an occasional red tape marker, but you have to find them. We were being guided by someone who knew this rainforest and its hidden treasures.

And there were many. 

Like the strange narrow plate buttresses of the Yellow Carabeens (Sloanea woollsii).

Some of these were wavy-edged, knuckled, undecided.

There were many palms here, and many vines, some as thick as the palms…

…and some so festooned with searching roots that they seemed bearded.

Surprisingly, some of the looping vines bore epiphytes, as if they were actual tree trunks.

A stunning feature tree was this ancient Tallowwood (Eucalyptus microcorys), where the gnarly convolutions of its base denoted its age and secured its position.

Another giant was this Turpentine (Syncarpia glomulifera) whose bark bore scorch marks but it had not burnt, being one of the most difficult timbers to ignite. Highly durable, it is much sought after for poles and wharves, as it resists marine invertebrates and termites.

Apart from the famed Big Fella Gum, once deemed the tallest tree in NSW, there were other impressive Flooded Gums (Eucalyptus grandis).

This forest is  impressive in itself, keeping these mighty survivors safely ensconced in their green realm for us to marvel at today.