Amazing Australian Trees
Australia supports more than 25,000 species of plants
and trees and there's some pretty amazing ones amongst them;
Black Palm
Normally palms are soft inside and not useful as
timber but the black palm is the exception with its trunk being
one of the hardest types of wood known. It is usually only the
bottom metre or so that is this hard though it ca run higher than
this. The palm is found in North Queensland and bears red golf
ball size seeds and is similar in appearance to the infamous foxtail
palm. The timber is used for small craftwork as it is not available
in big enough quantities to do anything else with.
Boabab
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
In Africa they refer to this as the upside down
tree as the branches resemble tree roots and the whole thing looks
like it was picked up, turned around and whacked back in the ground.
Pronounced as Boab this tree is evidence that Australia was once
connected to Africa, they can be found in the Kimberleys in northern
W.A. , the most famous one being the prisoner tree at Derby. This
is a big hollow tree that was once used to house prisoners.
Bottle brush
Bottle brush
Photo by Bethwyn Boyt-Cullis.
Fanpalm
Fanpalms on the Dubuji boardwalk at Cape Tribulation
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
Foxtail Palm
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
Foxtail palms in the remote Cape Melville region of north Queensland
The Foxtail Palm, (Wodyetia bifurcata) was named
after Wodyeti, an Aboriginal bushman, who was the last of his
line holding a vast traditional knowledge of the palm's natural
habitat, the Bathurst Bay-Melville Range in Far North Eastern
Queensland, Australia. The reason why this Australian native lay
undiscoveredfor so long is that it occurs naturally only in this
very remote region of north Queensland. During the 1980s and 1990s
poachers used to raid the palms to sell the seeds to nurseries
and so this solitary feather-leaved palm was only introduced legally
to the nursery trade in Australia in 1995, though long before
foxtail palms could be seen in gardens and city parks, while one
government department was pursuing criminals that dealt in the
seeds another was busy buying and planting them. The Foxtail Palm
is prized by palm enthusiasts and landscapers for its thick, robust
trunk and neat appearance, especially the arching crown of light
green fronds which, as the name suggests, gives the palm's foliage
the appearance of a fox's tail as it sways in the breeze. The
Foxtail Palm is now one of the world's most popular landscape
palms.
Idiospermum
The Idiospermum was one of the first flowering trees
to evolve and was thought to have been extinct until discovered
fairly recently in the Daintree area.
When farmer John Nicholas in the Daintree kept finding one dead
cow after another he called in the vet whose opinion was that
it looked like strychnine poisoning. First the farmer suspected
neighbours of killing his cows but when the vet examined the cows
he found tree seeds inside their stomachs that he sent away for
analysis. It took some time for the results to come back as the
seeds could not be identified but finally, after going as far
as Germany where some old research results from an Australian
fieldtrip were filed away the conclusion was the seeds were from
an Idiospermum, one of the first flowering trees to evolve on
this earth but thought to have been extinct for millions of years!
Scientists rushed to theDaintree farm but were in for a shock.
The farmer meanwhile had also concluded that the seeds had killed
the cows so what do you do then? Ofcourse! You get your chainsaw
and cut the tree down! After their initial heart attack on arrival
the scientists later managed to find more Idiospermums.
The Daintree without a doubt still has countless secrets and new
species to be discovered, at the canopy crane at Coconut Beach
where scientists get lifted up in a gondola to study life in the
canopy many thousands of new insects have been discovered in only
a couple of years.
Mangrove
A very special kind of tree able to survive in salt
water in tidal flats where its roots are often submerged. Mangrove
areas used to be regarded as mosquito and sand fly havens best
cleared to make room for waterfront developments but in more recent
years people have come to understand that they are important breeding
grounds for lots of things at the bottom of the food chain and
loss of mangroves actually translates in reduced nmbers of fish
in the ocean. There are many types of mangroves that all have
different ways to survive the difficult conditions where they
grow. Some have spongy tissue on the roots in which they store
oxygen that help them through the time they are under water, others
have 'snorkels' sticking up from their roots that they use to
get oxygen as the mud in which they sit holds no oxygen like normal
soil does.
Mountain ash
Photo by Malcolm Cobb
Malcolm Cobb sent us this great photo of his car
totally dwarfed by huge mountain ash (eucalyptus regnans), 60
km. from Melbourne. (Click to enlarge.)
Pandanus
This versatile tree is found from bare dry rock
on the Queensland coast to the swamps of the Northern Territory.
Stinging Tree
A healthy specimen of the infamous stinging tree next to the carpark at
Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation
The stinging tree, also known as Gympie Gympie is found throughout Queensland
and has the ability to inflict extreme pain on those unlucky enough to
brush against the hairly leaves. Also jokingly referred to as bushman's
toilet paper because of the unconfirmed story of the poor soldier that
after a crap in the bush chose the large leaves of a nearby stinging tree
to use as toilet paper. The pain is caused by a chemical that gets injected
into the skin by microscopic hollow fibreglass hairs that get stuck in
the skin and can cause pain up to three months after the initial sting.
During World War Two the British Army sent some people up to North Queensland
to collect a few bags of the leaves to take back to Cambridge where the
chemical was identified. The reason for this expedition had been to investigate
the possibilities of using this extremely nasty compound in a military
weapon but was never developed.
Some stinging tree encounters:
One day a few guests arrive that were not looking overly happy. Once
they settled in a bit and we got talking I found out why. They had stopped
at Mossman Gorge on their way to Cape Tribulation and after their walk
discovered that the luggage had disappeared from their convertible. At
first thinking some joker might have thrown it in the bushes behind the
car they started searching in the greenery only to find that most of it
was stinging trees!
Another time I get an Italian family arrive, they look around, love the
place and all's going well. Until 5 minutes after their arrival when their
8 year old son goes up a track to my place where he's not supposed to
go anyway and then deviates off the track a metre and hits a 10 cm. high
stinging tree seedling with his ankle. I had seen the little plant there
before but as it was well out of the way of the guests had never worried
about it before. Now all hell had broken loose though, the little boy
was screaming his head off, the parents stressed out to the max etc. What
to do now... I remembered a trick that an old bloke married to an Aboriginal
woman had told me; cut a banana sucker and rub the juice on the stung
area. I ran to the road and cut whatever banana suckers I could find but
it had not rained for a few months and I could not get a drop out of them.
I remembered another thing; twice I had asked old Aborigines about what
they do in the case of a stinging tree encounter and both times the answer
was; just piss on it. I had tried this once myself when I got a little
sting on my lower leg and I must say the burning sensation disappeared
immediately after being touched by the urine but what was I supposed to
do with this situation; a certain degree of excentricity is accepted of
all Aussies and certainly B&B owners but to unzip and give their son
the golden shower 10 minutes after their arrival would probably go just
a little bit too far. I ended up driving to the Bathouse just down the
road where the owner/scientist gave me some diluted hydrochloric acid
that I put on the sting and thank goodness the boy calmed down and the
drama was solved.
Photo and story by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation
Dexter Boneham from Brissy told us how as a kid he got a
sting on his hand, his father then got his cigarette lighter out and burned
his skin to the point where it came off and when (eventually) the new
skin grew back after much agony this did not have the microscopic hairs
in it. This is not a recommended cure, we suggest to try waxing instead.
Strangler Fig
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
The curtain fig tree in the Atherton Tablelands
This tree does things opposite from the other trees. It starts off when
a seed in a bird dropping lands in the top of another tree. It will send
its roots down the trunk of the host tree until they reach the soil and
then both tree and roots will continue to grow until they eventualy will
have totally enveloped the host tree. Some say the host tree does not
actually get strangled but gradually dies because the strangler fig takes
so long to develop and gradually shades the host tree depriving it of
sunlight. Whatever it is they make beautiful trees and you can see some
very impressive specimens in the Atherton Tablelands west of Cairns in
North Queensland, the Cathedral Figtree and Curtain Figtree are well known
attractions there admired by thousands of people each year.
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest
Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
Tar Tree
Found in North Queensland and known for its extremely aggressive
chemicals. Early 2004 a tree lopper in Port Douglas had to be taken to
hospital after being severly affected when he got covered in vegetation
matter when a tar tree was put through the mulcher. Earlier a girl swimming
in Emmagen Creek, north of Cape Tribulation also needed medical care after
swimming in a water hole where seeds form the tar tree had dropped in.
Wollemi Pine
The Wollemi Pine (Wollemia nobilis) was discovered purely
by chance near the Blue Mountains by bushwalker David Noble, a NSW National
Parks and Wildlife Officer, in 1994. It is one of the oldest and rarest
trees in the world and related to the Kauri, Norfolk Island, Hoop, Bunya
and Monkey Puzzle pines.The Wollemi Pine belongs to the 200 million year
old Araucariaceae family and was thought to be extinct, the oldest known
fossil is 90 million years old! Their location is kept secret as there
are only a hundred mature trees found. The Wollemi Pine is a conifer with
attractive, unusual dark green foliage, bubbly bark and sprouts multiple
trunks. It grows fast in light, favours acid soils, and temperatures from
-5-45°C . The largest wild Wollemi Pine in the rainforest gorge is
40m tall with a main trunk of 1.2m wide. Conservationists have given the
tree its own website where you can get involved in the conservation of
this tree, more
info...
Do you know of any amazing Australian trees? Then contact
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