CALGAROO A journey into nature Newsletter of the Parramatta and Hills District Group Australian Plants Society NSW Ltd Our vision: inspiring people to admire, grow and conserve native plants
WHAT’S ON FOR THE REST OF 2022
| Saturday 25 June 2 pm: | Members’ meeting at Gumnut Hall, Gumnut Place Cherrybrook. Speaker: Lachlan Turner “Bushland Photography” |
| Saturday 23 July 2 pm: | Bushwalk Jones Road Kenthurst. |
| Saturday 27 August 2 pm: | Bushwalk Cobar Ridge, Marramarra National Park. |
| Saturday 24 September: | Celebration of our Group’s 50th anniversary. |
| Saturday 22 October 2 pm: | Bushwalk. |
| Saturday 26 November 2 pm: | Members’ meeting and Christmas Party. |
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Members’ meeting
Saturday 25 June 2 pm at Gumnut Hall, Gumnut Place Cherrybrook
Speaker: Lachlan Turner “Bushland Photography”
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Local photography expert Lachlan Turner will give tips on getting the best results for photographing our local bushland and native plants, and also show some inspirational examples for those who are keen to search out the hidden wonders that exist in our local bushland areas. This presentation is not about the virtues of, or the technical aspects of, the various types of cameras, but is more about demonstrating results when using any camera to capture memorable and notable bushland
images. This can be done no matter which type of camera is used.
Lachlan has produced several guides to the flora of The Hills District through his work as a volunteer at the Annangrove Environment Centre, where he also runs regular photography workshops.
One of Lachlan’s photos of Styphelia laeta growing in Fred Caterson Reserve Castle Hill
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Propagation
At last, we have some consistency and forward planning for our Propagation Group meetings at The Hills Council’s nursery.
- Council has removed the limit of 6 attendees imposed during Covid. We have some new members who are interested in joining us, and these people have been added to our mailing list. Welcome to Chris, Linda and Ricki.
- We always meet on a Wednesday, but it is no longer always the second Wednesday. We do however have the schedule (see below) for each month for the rest of the year to put in our diaries. Unfortunately, the May/June meetings are only two weeksapart, but it can’t be helped.
- We each need to book into each propagation day. The appropriate Eventbrite link will be sent out each month. Please book in each time you would like to attend. If you are new to this Group and would like to come, please contact me and you will be added to the list.
Details for each session:
- Each session is from 10 am to approximately 1 pm (depending on the workload), but although encouraged, attendees do not have to come for the entire session – we would rather you came for the time period you can make it, than not at all.
- We break at about 11.30 for morning tea and a chat. Coffee/tea, milk and sugar are provided; please BYO cup and something to share.
- BYO secateurs, gloves, hat, water. All other materials are provided. We have undercover benches to work at, so we generally do not cancel our session – there is always something we can do regardless of the weather (horizontal rain and 46° days notwithstanding ● )
- You can always call me if any queries
Schedule For 2022
- 25 May
- 08 June
- 06 July
- 03 August
- 14 September
- 12 October
- 09 November
- 07 December
Looking forward to seeing you all again!
Lesley Waite 0438 628 483
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Workshops at the Community Environment Centre, Annangrove, have restarted . . .
Planting by the Moon – 9 June
Claude Corrente will be conducting this workshop at the Community Environment Centre, Currie Avenue Annangrove, on Thursday 9 June at 10 am.
Moon planting is an ancient agricultural practice based on lunar cycles, and is still conducted today. Cycles of the moon do affect plant growth. Claude is a new member of our Group.
Her family came from northern France where farmers still do planting by the moon.
While aimed mainly at vegetable growers, this workshop could have implications for native plant enthusiasts too. When is the best time to take cuttings? When is the best time to sow seeds, and for seedlings to grow? Come along to find out.
Visitors are welcome. If you are planning to come, please register here for your free ticket.
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Native Plants for Pots, Courtyards and Small Gardens – 23 June
Brian Roach will be giving this presentation at the Community Environment Centre, Currie Avenue Annangrove, on Thursday 23 June at 10 am.
He will be exploring how to best use a small garden space in selecting native plants that work well on a smaller scale. Brian has been a member of the Australian Plants Society for nearly 50 years, and for most of that time has operated a native plants nursery from his home at Westleigh. Brian’s talk will include photos of species that can flourish in a small garden area. There will be a selection of native plants for sale.
If you are planning to come, please register here for your free ticket.
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Eucalyptusdom Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum
Jennifer Farrer
This exhibition has been at the Powerhouse Museum for several months now, and will continue until 28 August. I finally managed to visit it with a friend recently, and it is well worth the visit.
The title comes from a 1930’s text by Edward Swain, one of Australia’s earliest conservationists. The exhibition reveals the Museum’s longstanding relationship with the eucalypt. One of the dominant features is large hand-painted illustrations of Eucalypt species found in NSW, with titles highlighting their economic value for timber, oil and paper. Also, large table-sized boards of Eucalypt timbers highlight their beautiful grains and colours.
The Powerhouse Museum was formally known as the Technological Museum, and one of its primary roles was to research the commercial potential of indigenous plants. It was the Technological Museum that discovered the antibacterial properties of Tea Tree Oil in the 1920’s. The Eucalyptus plantation at the corner of Showground Road and Windsor Road Castle Hill was planted primarily to research the commercial properties of these trees.
Vials of Eucalyptus oil. Aren’t they beautiful?
One of the intriguing exhibits is a collection of glass vials containing oils derived from many different Eucalyptus species.
Drawing from the Museum’s extensive design and applied arts collection, the exhibition also explores the Eucalypt’s emergence as a symbol of Australian identity in the years leading up to and after Federation in Australia. One of the more surprising items is the sledge made from Spotted Gum which was taken to Antarctica by Sir Douglas Mawson.
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The Museum has commissioned contemporary artists including several indigenous artists to create works inspired by our Eucalyptus trees. One of the most sobering parts of the exhibition are photos of Eucalyptus trees in Tasmania at known sites of massacres of indigenous people. It is hard to imagine that such horrific events occurred in these beautiful places.
The exhibition still has several months to run. Make a date to visit it!
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NSW Region Gathering 21 May
On 21 May our Group hosted the NSW Region gathering and AGM. It was a most successful day. There’s full coverage of the meeting in the eNewsletter of APS NSW for June which was recently emailed to everyone.
A big “thank you” to our members who helped make this day memorable. Joan Hayes looked after the garden visit at Boongala, Pip Gibian was first in the hall and last to leave and organised the kitchen, Ricki Nash co-ordinated the food. Thanks to those who prepared and brought food for afternoon tea, and to those who set up Gumnut Hall and put everything away afterwards and cleaned up. Everything worked like clockwork!
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The mallee habit
Kevin Mills
A mallee is defined as a plant, usually a eucalypt, with multiple stems arising from a large underground woody swelling, called a lignotuber. The development of the lignotuber is a response to harsh conditions such as wildfire and drought, allowing the plant’s upper stems to die with the ability to regenerate from the lignotuber.
The mallee form is most common in semi-arid
regions. “The Mallee” is a vast area of country dominated by mallee eucalypts in western NSW and Victoria. In coastal regions, mallee eucalypts are usually localised and rare, and are often listed as threatened species.
The multi-stemmed mallee habit of Eucalyptus apiculata, photographed near Berrima.
Mallee species on the South Coast, all of which grow on the poor soils of the sandstone country, include Eucalyptus camfieldii, E. dendromorpha, E. obstans, E. langleyi and E. sturgissiana. The name mallee comes from an Aboriginal word mali meaning water, and refers to the water-holding ability of the roots in the inland mallees.
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Visit to Sylvan Grove
Ian Cox
On 4th May I went to Sylvan Grove Native Garden, Picnic Point, where the newly-named Harbour Georges River Group (formerly East Hills Group) held a ceremonial planting day to celebrate the lives and passing of senior APS members – Kyrill Taylor, Graham and Margaret Walters and Hugh Stacy.
Visitors included families of the celebrated members as well as friends and members of other APS groups. Proceedings commenced with speeches about their valued contributions to APS, followed by the planting of three rainforest trees in their memory. The trees planted were Waterhousea floribunda (Weeping Lilly Pilly), Lepiderema pulchella (Fine-leaved Tuckeroo), and Stenocarpus sinuatus (Firewheel Tree). Then we had a lovely morning tea.
Sylvan Grove is a wonderful, leafy 1.5-hectare reserve in a tranquil bushland setting near the Georges River, containing over 1,500 species of native plants. It features the richly diverse flora of a typical Hawkesbury Sandstone outcrop, while Dry Rainforest forms a canopy over the fern understorey.
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APS Conference Kiama 12 – 16 September – Volunteers needed
We have some members already volunteering, but we need more.
Don’t feel intimidated – there are lots of jobs. Welcoming with smiles, set up/tear down chat rooms, checking people on and off buses for excursions, giving out information, are just the tip of the iceberg.
To volunteer contact Margaret Gaul at mgaul7@gmail.com and get yourself booked in for the introduction and training zooms. It will be fun!
Garden Escapees in Bushland and Reserves
This is a responsible gardening guide for Greater Sydney from the Sydney Weeds Network, and can be downloaded in PDF format here. It’s a very informative 119-page book about weeds that may be encountered in Sydney bushland, some of them being native.
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A Greek and Latin habit
Angie Michaelis takes a diversion from the Ancient Greek alphabet, but stays on the botanical path.
When we see a plant in the nursery, or admire the photo of a flower in a book or on a website, we may know nothing of how it grows, and where it will flourish.
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Today I am looking at what names can tell us about the habit of a plant. Occasionally the genus name is a clue – take Eustrephus, one of my favourite bushland climbers. Derived from Greek eu (‘good’ or ‘well’) + strepho (‘twined’), its name tells us what it will do in the garden – which is more than we can work out from its common name, Wombat Berry!
Eustrephus is monotypic – that is, there is only one species, E. latifolius.
In fact, I have had to switch to Latin to interpret some specific epithets – the epithet is the second part of the name, which identifies the species and may describe the plant’s habit.
E. latifolius, the epithet from Latin meaning ‘broad+leaved’.
Let us begin on the ground floor, with prostrata and procumbens – both Latin words for prostrate, literally ‘flattened
before’ or ‘falling forward’. Kennedia prostrata, for example, grows much flatter than other Kennedia species.
Two similar words, repens and reptans, also describe groundcovering plants. Repens is often used for stoloniferous plants – those that spread along the ground and produce roots at intervals along the stem, like Dichondra repens.
Reptans – think Ajuga reptans – means ‘creeping’. Those who coined the word reptile in the Middle Ages were not thinking of dinosaurs, but of crawling creatures like lizards and snakes.
Working up through the shrubs, we find the Snake Vine, Hibbertia scandens. The specific names scandens means ‘climbing’ in Latin. The lovely blue-flowered Snake Lily is a climber too, but its name is a bit more obscure: Comesperma volubile is another Greek/Latin hybrid. For now, forget Comesperma, which means ‘hair’+’seed’, and look at the epithet volubile. In Latin, and in botany, volubilis means ‘twisting’ or ‘spinning’ or ‘twining’. The connection with the English word voluble is not obvious, but a voluble person is known for their fluency, their ability to rapidly turn a phrase.
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Pendula by contrast is easy. Acacia pendula weeps or droops, a pendulum also hangs down. By contrast, Cordyline stricta is straight or rigid – as is a strict person. In Latin, the word strictus means ‘drawn in’ or ‘tight’– you get the picture?
Finally, an easy one, arborescens. You probably know other words derived from arbor, the Latin word for ‘tree’ – arborist, arboreal, arboretum (although not arbour, which relates more closely to the word ‘herb)’. It could be useful to know that Zieria arborescens, unlike most Zieria, grows to form a substantial tree, up to 10 metres high. But perhaps its alternative name has turned you off already – it is Stinkwood.
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Waterfall Circuit Walk, Lawson
On 14th May Lesley Waite and Ian Cox went for a bushwalk at South Lawson with a small group of fern enthusiasts. The four waterfalls on the 2.5km circuit, Junction Falls, Cataract Falls, Federal Falls and Adelina Falls, were flowing as never before after all the rain, and looked awesome.
The Fern Study Group has an interesting event each month – either a bushwalk or a garden visit. The leader of the walks is usually Peter Hind, ex RBG, who knows just about every plant in NSW. You should join!
We saw lots of ferns – a total of 30 species, including the rare Blechnum gregsonii – but we saw so much more than the ferns. Here are some of Lesley’s fabulous photos – there are quite a few – I couldn’t omit any of these treasures!
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Trees don’t heal –
they seal!
Eucalyptus camaldulensis – many years after the fire.
Photo Lachlan Turner.
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Share your stories . . .
What have you been doing?
Email me at itcox@bigpond.com for the next Calgaroo
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In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of our Country, the people of the Dharug Nation, whose cultures and customs have nurtured, and continue to nurture, this land since time immemorial. We honour and celebrate the spiritual, cultural and customary connections of Traditional Owners to Country and the biodiversity that forms part of that Country.
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Parramatta and Hills District Group
SECRETARY: Jennifer Farrer apsparrahills@gmail.com 0407 456 577
EDITOR: Ian Cox itcox@bigpond.com
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