
Calendar
March
Sat 23 – APS Quartely Meeting hosted by North Shore Group at Ku- Ring-gai Wildflower Garden (see below for details)
Sat 30 – 9am – 5pm North Rocks Shopping Centre Native Plant Sale. All helpers welcome or come and buy some plants for your garden.
April
Wed 10 Deadline for Calgaroo news and articles
Wed 13 Propagation at Bidjiwong Community Nursery 10am to 1 pm
Sat 27 2-4pm Bimonthly meeting at Gumnut Hall, Gumnut Place Cherrybrook with guest speaker Ray and Elma Kearney on ‘Cooperation between animals, Plants and Fungi in Nature’
May
Wed 8 10am to 1pm Propagation at Bidjiwong Community Nursery
Sat 18 APS NSW AGM Hosted by Blue Mountains Group at Blaxland Community Hall, 33 Hope St Guest speaker Greg Bourke on Australia’s Carnivorous Plants
Cooperation between Plants Animals and Fungi in Nature.

Photo: Braden Fastier

At our April meeting we have guest speakers Ray and Elma Kearney who will tell us about Cooperation between Plants Animals and Fungi in Nature. Ray and Elma call themselves “citizen scientists” and have discovered numerous new species over the years during their weekly bushwalks. This includes nine new species of mushrooms as well as two new species of wasp.
Hopefully, if we are blessed with good autumn rains, we will also have the opportunity to join a Lane Cove fungi-spotting bushwalk in May to follow their talk.
Other News
Boongala Native Gardens & Rainforest: Plant sales, open gardens and rainforest walks Friday, Saturday and Sunday 76 Pitt Town Rd, Kenthurst 10am to 4pm from 1st to the 31st of March, 2019 For full details www.boongalagardens.com
APS NSW QUARTERLY GATHERING is being hosted by APS North Shore Group on Saturday 23rd March at Ku-Ring-Gai Wildflower Gardens, 420 Mona Vale Road, St Ives, NSW, Australia
Program: 10.30 am Walks and talks. A choice of two guided walks around the gardens: Walk 1 will visit the rare plants in the garden and the propagation area. Walk 2 will look at the rainforest plants in the gardens.
12 – 1 pm Lunch. Bring your own lunch. Tea and coffee will be available. Plants will be on sale during lunch time.
1-3 pm: Mark Paul’s presentation on Greenwalls, followed by afternoon tea.
Guest speaker is Mark Paul, Horticulturist and Founder of The Greenwall Company. Mark will share his expertise with us on the design, construction and choice of plants suitable for greenwalls. His company is involved in greenwall design and construction, in a wide range of residential, commercial and public works.
In a recent media release, Mark stated “We have been working tirelessly on creating new forms of eco-friendly greenwalls for all types of spaces, including new designs for high-rise buildings. Not only do greenwalls look fantastic on the exteriors of the buildings, but they truly transform the aesthetics and atmosphere of the street, and surrounding areas, not to mention the health benefits.
APS NSW Annual General Meeting and second 2019 Quarterly Gathering – Saturday, 18 May 2019. Hosted by the APS Blue Mountains Group at Blaxland Community Hall, 33 Hope St, Blaxland
Did you know that Australia has one of the world’s richest carnivorous plant floras?
Keen to find out about Australian carnivorous plants, what they are, what they eat, how they capture their prey and how to grow and maintain them in cultivation? So little is known about Australia’s fascinating and diverse carnivorous plant flora, consisting of around 187 species from 6 genera.


Greg Bourke will be guest speaker at the APS AGM on 18 May 2019 hosted by the Blue Mountains Group. He has an unbridled passion for these highly unusual plants and will be able to answer all your questions.
Greg has always been fascinated by carnivorous plants and has become an established expert in the industry, and is co-author of the authoritative book, Australian Carnivorous Plants. He is currently Curator-Manager, Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mt Tomah and is Vice President for Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand.
Greg is a wonderful speaker who will enthral you with his extensive knowledge of, and passion for A u s t r a l i a n carnivorous plants. This is an opportunity that should not be missed.
There will be a selection of plants, including carnivorous plants, for sale.
You can hear more about Greg’s passion for ‘plants with a bite’, by listening to Richard Glover ’ s recording with him on Self-improvement Wednesday, ABC 702, at https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/sydney-drive/siw-greg-bourke/10124412

Cephalotus follicular, a low growing pitcher plant endemic to Southwest Australia. Photo: Holger Hennern
‘Whole thing is unravelling’: climate change is reshaping Australia’s forests
From Graham Readfearn The Guardian –
Thu 7 Mar 2019 – Our Wide Brown Land Series
Australia’s forests are being reshaped by climate change as droughts, heatwaves, rising temperatures and bushfires drive ecosystems towards collapse, ecologists have told Guardian Australia…
Read more here:
The Grass Tree: Its Uses and Abuses
Phil Watson
Grass trees are very much part of the Australian landscape and uniquely Australian. They fascinated the first European settlers, since they were unlike any other known plant. In fact, they are a living fossil developed early in the evolutionary stakes for flowering plants.
Lumbered with a difficult to pronounce and even more difficult to spell botanical name of Xanthorrhoea, they have recently become prized for their landscape attributes. Tasmania has four species namely Xanthorrhoea australis, Xanthorrhoea arenaria, Xanthorrhoea nana and Xanthorrhoea minor, with the first species being most widely represented in the woodland communities.
Few populations remain due to degradation
For nearly two centuries, land managers have showed both apathy and lack of concern towards these very slow growing plants and their associated sandy, well-drained habitats.

Today, the communities containing these grass trees are very limited in extent, with many of the remnants subjected to various degradation processes. These are taking their irretrievable toll on the grass tree population, which include land clearing, land improvements and the spread of the phytophthora fungal disease.
A sad story of destruction
This relates to an experience with an exploitative landowner in an outer-suburban area well known for its grass trees, who offered for sale large numbers of magnificent specimens. His aim was to cash in on the grass trees, prior to decimating their woodland community, in order to improve the land for a few sheep.
Although information on the rarity of his resource was sensitively provided, the outcome was the clearing of many acres of this grass tree community and the sale of transplanted specimens to unsuspecting nurseries. The word ‘unsuspecting’ is used because, unless expertly transplanted, they tend to die slowly, leaving the nursery out of pocket, along with many angry customers demanding refunds.
Sadly, even today the remaining grass tree’s survival continue s to be threatened, whilst the property remains out of sight from the road and in the possession of the farming family.

Features which inspire landscapers and backyard gardeners alike
Grass trees are related to the lilies, but are placed in a separate family. They are close relatives with the sagg (Lomandra longifolia) with which it share many attributes.
They are very slow growing, with some elderly specimens being amongst the oldest living plants on a worldwide scale, surviving for many hundreds of years.
Beautiful old examples are survivors of many wild fires and develop into architectural masterpieces. Wild fire can cause their blackened trunk (1 to 2 metres) to branch into two or even more heads. These consist of thick, rough corky bark, surrounded by a whorl of long, wiry leaves with unique flowers.
The flowers appear as long cylindrical spikes (1 to 3 metres) arising out of the skirt of grass like leaves, often flowering as a direct response to a very recent wild fire. This ability to be one of the first flowers to appear after a wild fire ensures a food source for many insects and birds, in an otherwise alien, blackened moonscape environment. The tops of these spikes are covered with a dense pattern of tiny white to yellow florets. These in turn produce seed capsules containing a few hard black seeds. Their excellent horticultural qualities make grass trees prized garden exhibits.
Cultivation is not easy
Cultivation presents great challenges, with the seed taking up to a year to germinate and the young grow at a rate of only a centimetre or so a year.
Transplanting from the bush is not recommended, unless imminent development will destroy the plant. Transplanting requires diligence and heavy equipment to extract the very deep underground stems and roots, whilst keeping the residual soil attached. Flooding the root zone helps maintain an intact root system and digging the new sites hole prior to the arrival, followed by deep watering of the plant’s roots zone, aids the chances of survival.
A traditional Aboriginal favourite
Grass trees were a ‘staple’ plant for the aborigines, providing food, drink, fibre and materials for making implements and weapons.
Food and drink
As a food source, the white, tender sections of leaf bases, the growing points of stem and succulent roots were all eaten regularly. The removal of the growing point was rare as it destroyed the plant altogether. The seeds were collected and ground into a flour to provide dough for cooking a type of damper, within the ashes of a wattle wood fire.
They frequently dug out edible grubs found at the base of the trunk. The grub’s presence could be detected by the observing the dead leaves in the centre of the grass tree crown.
Small sweet pockets of honey could also be extracted from the carpenter bee’s cellular nests, which were often bored in the soft pith of the flower stalk.
To wash this down, the nectar from the flower could be extracted by soaking it in water filled bark troughs, to produce a thick sweet drink. A citric flavoured alcoholic brew could be made from fermenting the nectar over 3 to 5 days. An extra tang was added to the brew by crushing a few ‘formic’ ants into the beverage.
Early colonial use
The resin was important for colonists, beginning with its regular use in the early settlers dwellings, but declining in importance as plastics and acrylics superceded it, towards the middle part of the twentieth century. These uses included;
- Burned resin produced a pleasant scent which was common in early churches.Volume 46 No 2 Grass Trees 15 March 2019
- The resin was the basis for a low cost spirit to manufacture varnishes, used on furniture and floors in settlers’ houses.
- A stove polish and a metal coating for tins, used in meat canning and on brass instruments, were formulated from the resin.
- The resin was used for sizing paper, in soap making, perfumery and in manufacturing early gramophone records.
Summary
Although the grass tree has been of immense value to the aborigines and colonists, its future lies in the hands of the landowners and nature reserve managers, who are blessed with the woodland remnants which support the remaining populations. It is a true icon of the Aussie bush and as such, provides a unique identity to our Australian landscape.
The original ‘super glue’
Although not specifically a plant for fibre the grass tree was very useful in crafting of aboriginal tools. The light straight flower stalk served as a butt-piece for spears. A tip section of tea tree would then be attached to the end of the spear and hardened in the fire before used for hunting.
Mainland Aboriginals used pieces of very dry flower stalk for making fire with a drilling stick.
The leaves produce a hard waterproof resin, which could be collected from the base of the trunk. This resin melts when wanned, but sets hard when cold. It had a number of uses including;
- Forming glue by mixing it with charcoal, beeswax or fine sand and dust
- Gluing the cement stone heads to wooden handles and spears to shafts and tips
- Waterproofing bark canoes and water carrying vessels.
The versatility of this resin in the every day lives of the aborigines, made it a valuable trading item and was traded amongst tribes for other important collectables.
From the newsletter of ASGAP’s Wildlife and Native Plants Study Group, Summer 2001-02
Iconic Forests Reaching Climate Tipping Points in American West, Study Finds
As in our old-growth forest trees in the recent Tasmanian and Victorian fires, Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir forests are struggling to regrow after wildfires in parts of the American West as temperatures rise, and air and soil become drier.
From Phil McKenna. Inside Climate News.
insideclimatenews.org 11 March 2019
Climate change in the American West may be crossing an ominous threshold, making parts of the region inhospitable for some native pine and fir forests to regrow after wildfires, new research suggests.
As temperatures rise, the hotter, drier air and drier soil conditions are increasingly unsuitable for young Douglas firs and ponderosa pines to take root and thrive in some of the region’s low-elevation forests, scientists write in a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Wildfires in these areas could lead to abrupt ecosystem changes, from forest to non-forest, that would otherwise take decades to centuries, the study says.
“Once a certain threshold was crossed, then the probability of tree establishment decreased rapidly,” said Kimberley Davis, a researcher at the University of Montana and lead author of the study. “The climate conditions are just a lot less suitable for regeneration.”
The two iconic species are important to both the region’s forest ecology and its economy, particularly its timber industry.
Davis and her colleagues looked at growth rings of nearly 3,000 young trees in 33 fire-damaged areas of California, Colorado, the Northern Rockies and the southwestern United States to see when the forests recovered after fires over the past 30 years. Analyzing climate data over the same period, they found certain thresholds involving summer humidity for ponderosa pine, surface temperature for Douglas fir, and soil moisture for both species, beyond which there was a sharp decline in forest regrowth.
The warmer, drier air isn’t harming mature trees, but it is preventing future generations from growing, Davis said.
“There could be a lot of areas where there is currently forest but if we have a fire we might not see regeneration,” she said.
Thresholds ‘Show How Much Is at Stake’
Davis and her colleagues found that most of the sites they looked at had crossed the temperature and humidity threshold at some point in the last 20 years.
They targeted the driest and warmest sites in the region to see if climate change was already beginning to affect forests. The researchers now plan to assess the extent to which regeneration is affected in relatively cooler, wetter sites in the region.
Several factors influence a forest’s regrowth after a wildfire, such as the severity of the fire, regional drought and how the trees produce seeds. The researchers noted that as the region sees fewer years with climate conditions suitable for seedlings to grow, the nature of the trees’ seed production, with heavy crops of cones only every few years, will further limit new growth.
Last year, wildfires burned more than 8.7 million acres nationwide, 32 percent higher than the 10-year average according to an annual report by the National Interagency Coordination Center released last week. More than 1.8 million of those acres were in California, the highest in recorded state history, according to state fire officials.
The inability of forests to bounce back from such fires is cause for concern, said Joe Fargione, science director for the Nature Conservancy’s North America region.
“The thresholds identified here show how much is at stake— losing forests because trees can’t grow back—if we don’t accelerate the switch to clean energy and invest more in natural climate solutions,” Fargione said. “This study will help land managers identify forests at the greatest risk of not regenerating post-fire.”
Fargione said such high-risk forests can be targeted for selective thinning to reduce the risk of forest fires and for restoration efforts to improve the success of forest regeneration.
Trees Play a Critical Climate Role

Credit: Lyn Alweis/ Denver Post via Getty Images
Protecting forests is important for slowing climate change because of their ability to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store the carbon in their trunks, branches and roots.
A study Fargione and others published last fall found better forest, farm and land management practices offer natural climate solutions that could mitigate 21 percent of the United States’ annual greenhouse gas emissions.
“It really highlights the fact that we need to begin a national and international conversation about how we can enhance the resiliency of our global forests,” Anthony Swift, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Canada Project, said of the current study.
Swift said intensive logging, road building and cutting trees to make room for transmission lines weakens the ability of forests to deal with added stressors like climate change.
“We don’t need to stop all activity in global forests, but it does raise the need to reconsider how and where we extract timber and engage in other industrial activities in forests,” he said.
A report last month by NRDC looked at how clear cutting boreal forests in Canada by some U.S. toilet paper manufacturers imperils forests and could hasten climate change.The report called for alternatives, like using recycled paper, that don’t lead to the fragmentation and clear cutting of intact forests. Leaving forests more intact could also help protect Douglas fir and ponderosa pine forests in the American West, Swift said.
“Whether we are looking at wildfires or industrial activities, concerns that in a changing climate regeneration is going to be more difficult to achieve is an issue that we all need to be looking at more carefully because of the roll our forests have to play for the global climate,” he said.
Pruning eremophilas
Heather Miles
Question: I have an Eremophila glabra (Murchison Magic) that flowers all year round. I’ve never pruned this plant therefore it’s getting out of control and quite leggie. Could you please let me know when is the best time to prune this Eremophila of mine?
Answer from Ben and Ros Walcott: Most eremophilas do well with a good prune to keep them dense. The best time is when the flowering has slowed down but often that isn’t possible so just do it when you can. In Canberra we tend not to prune in the late autumn because the new growth gets hit by the frosts but otherwise, anytime seems OK.

How hard to prune depends on the plant and the effect you are after. We know someone who cuts some to the ground but for us that is too radical. Pruning by up to ½ is not too radical.
Thanks to our readers and Ben and Ros Walcott for their answer. More information on eremophilas can be found in our APS plant database – Plant database Shrubs.
Ray & Elma Kearney
Mushroom champions Ray and Elma Kearney of Lane Cove were recognised in 2014 for their groundbreaking discoveries with a nomination in the Pride of Australia Awards.
The husband and wife team were behind the world-first discovery of nine new species of mushrooms in Bushland Park in Lane Cove about 20 years ago.
Known as the hygrocybeae community, it includes one named hygrocybe lanecovensis after their home suburb. This year the status of the fungi community was changed from being an endangered ecological community to a critically endangered community.
This was because the couple noticed many were suffering from abnormal growths linked to pollution. Normal fruiting structures of Hygrocybe reesiae in Lane Cove Bushland park ” Rosecomb” abnormal gills as a result of diesel toxicity found in protected Hygrocybe reesiae fungi.

Photo: Daily Telegraph July 19, 2014
Leptospermum
Johann Reinhold Forster (1729-98) and his son Johann George Adam Forster (1754-94) described “Leptospermum” in 1776, but separation of the species remained difficult. Bentham named several species in 1867. Briggs and Johnson produced an acceptable generic classification for Myrtaceae, based on inflorescence structure, in 1979. In 1989 a revision of Leptospermum by Thompson was published. Bean conducted further revision in 1992.
The name Leptospermum originates from the Greek “leptos” – fine or slender; and “sperma” – a seed. Most people are aware of the various cultivars of the New Zealand form of Leptospermum scorparium, which have been available in nurseries for many years. My experience with these has been that they require a cool climate with well drained soil conditions for optimum growth. Leptospermum scorparium also occurs in Tasmania.
Leptospermum species are commonly called “tea – tree”. This name arose from the practice of early settlers using an infusion of leaves of aromatic species in hot water to make a tea substitute.
The general description of the genus states:
“Shrubs or small trees. Leaves alternate, entire. Flowers solitary or 2 or more together at ends of short branches or in leaf axils, bracts scarios, usually early deciduous, bracteoles close under hypanthium; hypanthium adnate to ovary at base; sepals 5; petals 5, spreading; stamens numerous, free, not or scarcely longer than petals, anthers versatile, connective with globular gland; ovary usually 3-5 locular, occasionally 6-12 locular. Fruits capsules, valves usually protruding from persistent hypanthium.”



Parramatta and Hills District Group
SECRETARY: Caroline Franks
Email: apsparrahills@gmail.com