Coastal bush gems

The walk through the bush in the non-tourist part of Sea Acres National Park near Port Macquarie is gentle and calm… and full of surprises, even alongside the track.

Like this tree, which the boffins at NSW Native Plant I.D. tell me is a Shiny-leaved Stinging Tree (Dendrocnide photinophylla), which I’ve never seen before. 

It apparently doesn’t sting as much as the bigger cousin that I know (Dendrocnide excelsa). I didn’t test it. These eye-catching fruits have been appropriately likened to a ‘mass of white grubs’, but birds like them.

There was only one clump of what I’d thought must be a Lomandra, but am told is a similarly strappy tussock called Gahnia aspera, or Rough Saw-sedge. These are its bright orange seeds.

Close to the seaside itself was a treeless slope dotted with these small low starry rings of flowers, which I am told might be Pimelea linifolia, as it is often prostrate like this.

There are quite a few palm clusters near the seaside, and while I don’t really like palms, I have to admire the dainty hula skirts left behind after the fruits have been eaten or fallen. I had assumed these were native Bangalow Palms, common on the coast.

I had arrived when it was still early, after a shower of rain, and was lucky enough to see these dewy spiderwebs parcelling up the leafy ends of branches.

And the pearls strung along this vine… sometimes it’s the simplest things that hold the beauty to make me glad I am here.

I saw a doco on Leonard Cohen recently, where, in his 70s, he said that in this world of today ‘You either raise your fist or say Hallelujah. I try to do both’.

I related to that. My fist is raised at so many things in these outrageous, inhumane times, so I welcome bush gems like this that draw forth a resounding ‘Hallelujah’!