November 2017


Volume 44, No 11

My Favourite Rainforest Plants for Indoors

*David Ratcliffe

If I had to choose three of my favourite rainforest plants for growing in containers, well I should hardly know where to begin.

I could choose from three spectacular ferns. I could have the rough maidenhair fern, Adiantum hispidulum, tough and wiry but very showy, especially in new growth, or the beautiful Goniophlebium verrucosum (schellolepis fern, formerly Schellolepis percussa) with its long and gracefully arching light green fronds, or for something really unusual, the long weeping fronds of the tassel ferns, Huperzia species.

Perhaps I should choose orchids. I could have the deservedly well-known king orchid, Dendrobium speciosum, either the pure species or one of the many hybrids between D.speciosum and D.kingianum, now sold under the name of Dendrobium x delicatum. I really love the Christmas orchid, Calanthe triplicata with its lush rich green foliage and long-lasting heads of clean, white flowers, or there’s the tough old favourite, Dendrobium gracilicaule, but the flower fragrance of the latter is very bold.

Palms are another group of popular container plants and I would have great difficulty in overlooking the beautiful walking-stick palm, Linospadix monostachya. A well grown specimen standing 1.5 metres or more with a delicate skirt of long arching fronds laced with equally long spikes of bright red berries is one of the most beautiful plants one could see. The lawyer cane palm, Calamus caryotoides, which has a climbing habit, also makes a very attractive container plant while one of the best palms reaching the market in recent times would have to be the Licuala fan palm, Licuala ramsayi. It is still a little hard to come by, but remains very desirable.

Another useful group are the palm lilies. And for something different I could have a costus, Costus potierae. What about a lily? There are always the climbers – say the climbing pandanus, Freycinetia scandens or F. excelsa. And for something with showy flowers I could have a Hoya or a passion flower. The pink passion flower, Passiflora aurantia, is most unusual. You know, I could just have a few small plants like Boea or Tripladenia !!!!!

*From the newsletter of the Australian Plants for Containers Study Group, April 1999 (via SGAP, Queensland’s Quarterly Bulletin). David Ratcliffe and his wife Patricia are the authors of Australian Native Plants for Indoors.

See the complete article at https://anpsa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/container-plants20.pdf and check out other papers some of which may be old but are still relevant.


Have you noticed that our new email address is apsparrahills@gmail.com
and that our web site is now
http://austplants.com.au/Parramatta-And-Hills
positioning us with the APS NSW site and along side other Groups. We are all together and hope thereby to strengthen our Society. We apologise to anyone who has been caught up in the change over.

And don’t miss our Facebook pages. Indeed as with any Facebook page you can indicate that you “like” what you see and read and comment interactively. Visit it at https://www.facebook.com/APSParraHills/


Calendar 2017

November
Sat 4 Deadline for Calgaroo news / articles
Wed 8 Propagation at Bidjiwong Community Nursery at 10am
Sat 25 Our meeting at Gumnut Hall, Gumnut Place, Cherrybrook at 2pm. Speaker will be Dr Peter Weston whose topic will be Gondwanic Plants. Christmas afternoon tea follows and we invite you to assist with a plate of Christmas party goodies.

December
Wed 4 Deadline for Calgaroo news / articles
Wed 13 Propagation at Bidjiwong Community Nursery at 10am


Our Last Meeting for 2017

– Saturday, 25 Nov 2017 at 2pm

For many years this would have been our Annual General Meeting at which we would have listened to the essential reports and elected our Committee for the ensuing year. When our Society found it sensible to change its year we too opted to change ours and now our Group’s Year is the calendar year and our AGM is in February.

Hence we have a speaker as usual and conclude with a Christmas Party as our activity. Please bring cakes and other party specials and come in a jolly mood to enjoy your fellow members’ company. Try to come a little early so that the tables may be set without delaying the meeting’s start at 2.00pm.

On this occasion at Gumnut Hall, Gumnut Place, Cherrybrook on Saturday, 25 November at 2pm, our speaker will be Dr Peter Weston whose topic will be Gondwanic Plants. Peter tells us, “The idea of an ancient ancestral Gondwanan flora was first suggested by Joseph Hooker, Charles Darwin’s closest scientific confidant, in 1853. He called it the “Antarctic flora” and although he had no idea what processes caused it, he was convinced that the repeated distributional pattern of over 100 genera and other “well marked plant groups” shared by Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia could not be explained by , appeal to “casual” means. The emergence of strong geological evidence for continental drift and plate tectonic theory in the late 1960s seemed to provide a general explanation for the pattern that Hooker had observed. Recent advances in biological science have provided powerful tools to test the idea that members of the Gondwanan flora drifted together on fragments of continental crust. I will illustrate the plant groups found in the Sydney Region that show “Gondwanan” distributions and discuss recent scientific discoveries that allow us to reconstruct their history. Some of them did indeed drift with the continents but others probably dispersed over significant oceanic barriers to get to where they live today.”

Dr Weston has been a senior scientist at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. It is amazing to think of plants today which have origins in those prehistoric times when Australia was a part of the super-continent of Gondwana. Don’t miss Peter’s talk.

We don’t hold a meeting in December or January but we will be back on 24 February 2018 when we hold our AGM. However plants like children need help through summer so the Propagation Group will be at Bidjiwong Community Nursery on the second Wednesdays, 13 December and 10 January at 10am. Our February meeting will include our AGM but we also have a speaker,

We have asked before but we ask again, “What gardening information would be most helpful to you?” Do you have a subject or an article that we can place in Calgaroo? We want Calgaroo to be relevant to you.”


Next APS Quarterly Gathering

hosted by North Shore Group in the Caley Pavilion at Ku- ring-gai Wildflower Garden on Saturday, 18 November

Guest speaker, Bronwen Roy who is a PhD student at Western Sydney University studying the impact of pathogens on honeybee. will speak about Australian Native Bees, a very appropriate topic for Australian Pollinator Week. But make a day of it. The program is:

  • tea and coffee will be available from 10.30 am.
  • go for a self-guided walk in the extensive grounds (maps are available from the Visitors Centre near the Garden entrance), or
  • be part of a guided walk organised by NSG, starting at 11 am and ending about noon.
  • lunch (bring your own) and plant sales from 12 noon.
  • the meeting begins at 2 pm and will be followed by afternoon tea.

Botanical Walk — Westhead Challenger Track

Marilyn Cross, Lesley Waite, Pip Gibian and Daniel McDonald

On a beautiful October day, members of APS ParraHills met at Westhead Ku-Ring-Gai Chase NP for a gentle bushwalk to see which native plants still had a spring show of flowers. We chose the Challenger Track which runs from the roadway out along the ridgetop until it meets the cliff top looking out over the mouth of the Hawkesbury River towards Brisbane Water National Park. The total distance of the track there and back is 2.6km. The terrain is sandy over Hawkesbury sandstone but with underlying hanging swamp in places (which was not so obvious because of the dry conditions over the last two months). The vegetation is heath-like with low growing trees until the last section of the track which becomes a denser woodland until the cliff top is reached.

Species List of Flowering Plants, Westhead Challenger Track, 7 Oct 2017

Species: WestheadBotanical NameTerrainRobinson(2003) Page #Fairley & Moore(2010) Page #
Actinotus minorRidgetop124353
Angophora hispidaRidgetop24238
Bauera rubiodesRidgetop156130
Boronia ledifoliaRidgetop115323
Boronia pinnataRidgetop116323
Boronia serrulataRidgetop117323
Burchardia umbellataRidgetop231533
Calytrix tetragonaRidgetop28290
Conospermum ericifoliumRidgetop93209
Conospermum longifoliumRidgetop93209
Dampiera strictaRidgetop173134
Darwinia fascicularisRidgetop29292
Dianella caerulea var. productaRidgetop232534
Dillwynia floribundaRidgetop77176
Epacris microphyllaRidgetop10792
Eriostemon australasiusRidgetop118329
Eucalyptus umbraRidgetop44240
Gahnia spp.Ridgetop289 – 290202 – 205
Gompholobium grandiflorumOff the ridgetop80180
Grevillea buxifoliaRidgetop94211
Grevillea sericeaOff the ridgetop96218
Grevillea speciosaRidgetop97219
Hibbertia bracteataWooded area15972
Hibbertia spp.Ridgetop158 – 16272 – 79
Hybanthus vernoniiRidgetop22489
Isopogon anethifoliusRidgetop99224
Kunzea capitataRidgetop51296
Lambertia formosaRidgetop99225
Lasiopetalum ferrugineumOff the ridgetop216, 21784
Leptospermum parvifoliumWooded area52 – 55302
Leucopogon microphyllusRidgetop109104
Micromyrtus ciliataRidgetop60305
Mitrasacme polymorphaRidgetop188382
Patersonia glabrataRidgetop228528
Persoonia levisWooded area101228
Philotheca salsolifoliaRidgetop121336
Pimelea linifoliaRidgetop220124 – 125
Pultenaea daphnoidesWooded area85194
Pultenaea ferrugineaWooded area85195 – 196
Sphaerolobium minusRidgetop89203
Tetratheca ericifoliaRidgetop221345
Woollsia pungensRidgetop113113
Xanthorrhoea arboreaClifftop 278549
Zieria laevigata ssp laevigataRidgetop122341

We identified the above over 40 species in flower and we probably missed a number more. We took a leisurely couple of hours walking the track, taking great delight in spotting different species and enjoying the views along the way and especially at the cliff top. After our botanical walk, we had a late picnic the way and especially at the cliff top. After our botanical walk, we had a late picnic lunch before returning home. This was such an enjoyable activity that we promised ourselves we would do it again next year.

The Challenger Track, West Head
Surely the Royal Throne
Darwinia fascicularis
Acacia suaveolens seed pods and seeds
Dampiera stricta
Persoonia levis
Angophora hispida
What is it?
It is very small, isn’t it?
Isopogon anethifolius
Banksia sp.
Burchardia umbellata
Lambertia formosa
Boronia serrulata (with wilting petals but red buds)

On the Challenger Track, West Head Our thanks to Marilyn Cross, Lesley Waite, Pip Gibian and Daniel McDonald


Grevillea acropogon

G. acropogon
Image: Warren & Gloria Sheather

This to me is another discovery in the new web site Resources Section. Warren and Gloria Sheather have one and have provided most of the detail below.

Grevillea acropogon comes from the Jarrah Forest in the southwest corner of Western Australia. The species is extremely rare and at one stage the wild population was reduced to 53 plants. In 2009 150 seedlings were introduced to a new site.

The Sheather’s plant came from a nursery near Tenterfield, northern New South Wales. Introducing the species into cultivation and planting in the wild should ensure the survival of Grevillea acropogon. This attractive plant could be cultivated as a foreground plant in native garden beds.

Grevillea acropogon is a prostrate to erect shrub normally reaching a height of just under a metre although in the Sheather garden it has grown to 1.8m. Their specimen has developed into a ground cover.

The leaves are light green, lobed with a sharp point on the end of each lobe. Flowers are held in terminal racemes and are an eye-catching red. Blooms are rich in nectar and are frequently visited by honeyeaters. Flowering extends through spring.

Ed. Had you heard of it? I certainly had not. This species was only named by Bob Mackinson in 1996 and described in 2000. It may be difficult to obtain as yet but it demonstrates that native plants may still to be found and described.


Philotheca myoporoides ssp myoporoides

P. myoporoides ssp. myoporoides (Long-leaf Waxflower) in the McColl garden at Sutherland Photo: Peter Shelton

This image caught my eye immediately I opened the APS Sutherland Group newsletter in September. It appears pure white (whiter than the page) – so beautiful. I think this was always a favourite of mine and was probably one of the first natives that I planted in our garden at Baulkham Hills in 1972.

We seem to have ignored some of our early favourites in recent years even though we have new members who may not be familiar with plants such as P. myoporoides.

It is in the family Rutaceae and therefore a relative of the Boronia and the Eriostemon. Indeed it was within the genus Eriostemon until 1998 when it and several other species were reclassified as Philotheca.

This subspecies is the long leaf form, Philotheca myoporoides ssp myoporoides, and the only one within the Sydney region. Five are currently recognised by some authorities although our ANPSA lists 9 ssp.

  • P. myoporoides subsp. acuta – occurs in Central NSW
  • P. myoporoides subsp. brevipedunculata – occurs in South Eastern NSW
  • P. myoporoides subsp. conduplicatus occurs in northen NSW and southern Queensland.
  • P. myoporoides subsp. myoporoides – is the most widespread and occurs in open forests along the Great Dividing Range from just north of Sydney to near Healesville in Victoria. It is the form most commonly grown in gardens
  • P. myoporoides subsp. obovatifolia occurs near the Queensland/New South Wales border on Mt Barney, Mt Lindesay and Mt Ernest.

*As mentioned above, this item was first published in the APS Sutherland newsletter of which Peter Shelton is editor. I have made further comment.


Good news for Banksia conferta

Banksia conferta

A new population of the critically endangered Glasshouse Banksia has been discovered in Coorabakh National Park, north-east of Taree.

An excerpt from the OEH web site:
“We were extremely surprised and excited to find the Glasshouse Banksia in a remote and mountainous area in Coorabakh National Park, as this plant usually prefers a different type of soil and geology,” Andrew said.

“The Glasshouse Banksia was previously only known to live in a small area within this park as well as the Glass House Mountains in Queensland – so this new population is great news for this rare plant. We haven’t counted the exact number of plants in this population as yet but we think it could be in the thousands, which is why we will go back later in the year.”

Read the rest of the article here: https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/media/OEHMedia17071001.htm

There are two subspecies recognised which occur in four distinct populations:

  • ssp. conferta; known from three area – the Glasshouse Mountains, and Lamington Plateau in Queensland; Coorabakh National Park near Taree, NSW.
  • ssp. penicillata; known only from the Newnes Plateau and Wollemi areas in the Western Blue Mountains, NSW. This subspecies differs from ssp. conferta in having generally serrated adult leaves (though entire leaved plants are sometimes found!), smoother grey bark and slightly larger seed pods.

B. conferta ssp conferta has been listed as a critically endangered species. Typically it is a somewhat irregular shrub reaching about 4m. Its bark is roughly tessellated and grey. Its branchlets are villous becoming glabrous, orange, red or brown. Its leaves are whorled, elliptic to obovate, 3.5-12 cm long, 0.7-4 cm wide, entire, somewhat undulate, hirsute and pubescent above becoming glabrous, hirsute below, becoming glabrous on the nerves but otherwise white-tomentose. Inflorescence cylindrical, 7-19 cm long, 5-6 cm wide at flowering. Flowers are yellowish-green to pinkish-brown in bud, golden when open; styles pale yellow. The seeds are enclosed in follicles attached to a woody cone and are generally retained within the cone until burnt. It prefers a light to medium well-drained soil in an open sunny position. It cannot cope with waterlogged soils so drainage is a must in our area. It is drought tolerant but frost tender. (Ed. It is a good exercise to check the meaning of the botanical names on Google or other Search Engine if you don’t know them.)

A prostrate form which retains the low habit is also in cultivation but its availability is unknown. Cylindrical flower spikes are conspicuous and bright yellow in colour about 150 mm long by 70-90 mm diameter. Flowers occur in early winter and may continue through to spring. The leaves are broad with toothed margins.

Propagation from seed or cuttings is relatively easy. No preparation is necessary.


Watch and learn from your own garden

Watching Gardening Australia on ABC television recently we were told that some bean seeds had naturalised to their garden conditions some years after the original seeds were first sown. Seeds from subsequent plantings from the one strain had adopted to these conditions little by little. The advice was “to watch and learn from your garden “

Although I can’t claim to have witnessed miracles I have believed that over years some plants from WA and other nonsubtropical conditions have improved with age. Plants from seeds or cuttings of these shrubs as they matured seemed more “at home” in my garden. Is this just fantasy? Watch and learn from your own garden.

Determine whether there really is a principle here.


New Research Unlocks the Mystery of Leaf Size

*Ian Wright

Why is a banana leaf a million times bigger than a common heather leaf? Why are leaves generally much larger in tropical jungles than in temperate forests and deserts? The textbooks say it’s a balance between water availability and overheating.

But new research, published today in Science, has found it’s not that simple. Actually, in much of the world the key limiting factor for leaf size is night temperature and the risk of frost damage to leaves.

As a plant ecologist, I try to understand variation in plant traits (the physical, chemical and physiological properties of their tissues) and how this variation affects plant function in different ecosystems. For this study I worked with 16 colleagues from Australia, the UK, Canada, Argentina, the US, Estonia, Spain and China to analyse leaves from more than 7,600 species. We then teamed the data with new theory to create a model that can predict the maximum viable leaf size anywhere in the world, based on the dual risks of daytime overheating and night-time freezing.

These findings will be used to improve global vegetation models, which are used to predict how vegetation will change under climate change, and also to better understand past climates from leaf fossils.

Conifers, which grow in very cold climates, grow thin needles less vulnerable to frost. Peter Reich

From giants to dwarfs

The world’s plant species vary enormously in the typical size of their leaves; from 1 square millimetre in desert species such as common eutaxia (Eutaxia microphylla), or in common heather (Calluna vulgaris) in Europe, to as much as 1 square metre in tropical species like Musa textilis, the Filipino banana tree.

But what is the physiological or ecological significance of all this variation in leaf size? How does it affect the way that plants “do business”, using leaves as protein-rich factories that trade water (transpiration) for carbon (photosynthesis), powered by energy from the sun?

More than a century ago, early plant ecologists such as Eugenius Warming argued that it was the high rainfall in the tropics that allowed large-leaved species to flourish there. In the 1960s and ’70s physicists and physiologists tackled the problem, showing that in mid-summer large leaves are more prone to overheating, requiring higher rates of “transpirational cooling” (a process akin to sweating) to avoid damage. This explained why many desert species have small leaves, and why species growing in cool, shaded understoreys (below the tree canopy) can have large leaves.

Rainforest plants under the tree canopy can grow huge, complex leaves. Ian Wright

But still there were missing pieces to this puzzle. For example, the tropics are both wet and hot, and these theories predicted disadvantages for large-leafed species in hot regions. And, in any case, overheating must surely be unlikely for leaves in many cooler parts of the world.

Our research aimed to find these missing pieces. By collecting samples from all continents, climate zones and plant types, our team found simple “rules” that appear to apply to all of the world’s plant species – rules that were not apparent from previous, more limited analyses. We found the key factors are day and night temperatures, rainfall and solar radiation (largely determined by distance from the Equator and the amount of cloud cover). The interaction of these factors means that in hot and sunny regions that are also very dry, most species have small leaves, but in hot or sunny regions that receive high rainfall, many species have large leaves. Finally, in very cold regions (e.g. at high elevation, or at high northern latitudes), most species have small leaves.

But the most surprising results emerged from teaming the new theory for leaf size, leaf temperature and water use with the global data analyses, to investigate what sets the maximum size of leaves possible at any point on the globe.

Understanding the mechanisms behind leaf size means leaf fossils – like these examples from the Eocene – can tell us more about climates in the past.

This showed that over much of the world it is not summertime overheating that limits leaf sizes, but the risk of frost damage at night during cold months. To understand why, we needed to look at leaf boundary layers. Every object has a boundary layer of still air (people included). This is to increase the insulating boundary of still air.

Larger leaves have thicker boundary layers, which means it is both harder for them to lose heat under hot conditions, and harder to absorb heat from their surroundings. This makes them vulnerable to cold nights, where heat is lost as long-wave radiation to the night-time sky.

So our research confirmed that in very hot and very dry regions the risk of daytime overheating seems to be the dominant control on leaf size. It demonstrated for the first time the broad importance of night-time chilling, a phenomenon previously thought important just in alpine regions. Still, in the warm wet tropics, it seems there are no temperature-related limits to leaf size, provided enough water is available for transpirational cooling. In those cases other explanations need to be considered, such as the structural costs and benefits of displaying a given leaf area as a few large leaves versus many more, smaller leaves.

The view from a canopy crane at the Daintree in Queensland. Peter Wilf

These findings have implications in several fields. Leaf temperature and water use play a key role in photosynthesis, the most fundamental plant physiological function. This knowledge has the potential to enrich “nextgeneration” vegetation models that are being used to predict regionalglobal shifts in plant nutrient, water and carbon use under climate change scenarios.

These models will aid the reconstruction of past climates from leaf macrofossils, and improve the ability of land managers and policymakers to predict the impact of a changing climate on the range limits to native plants, weeds and crops.

But our work is not done. Vegetation models still struggle to cope with and explain biodiversity. A key missing factor could be soil fertility, which varies both in space and time. Next, our team will work to incorporate interactions between soil properties and climate in their models.

*This article was written by Ian Wright, Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University and published in The Conversation. The original publication may be seen at
https://theconversation.com/new-research-unlocks-the-mystery-of-leaf-size-83294


The Australian Brush-turkey, Alectura lathami

This bird inhabits rainforests and wet sclerophyll forests, but can also be found in drier scrubs. In the northern part of its range, the Australian Brush- turkey is most common at higher altitudes, but individuals move to the lowland areas in winter months. In the south, it is common in both mountain and lowland regions.

It is the largest of Australia’s three megapodes (Family Megapodiidae). The megapodes are a distinct family of the group of fowl-like birds (Order Galliformes), which includes quails, turkeys, peafowl and jungle-fowl. The Australian Brush-turkey has a mainly black body plumage, bare red head, yellow throat wattle (pale blue in northern birds) and laterally flattened tail. The Australian Brush-turkey is not easily confused with any other Australian bird. We have a few wandering about at our Age Care Facility.


Ozothamnus ‘Colour Surprise’

This is a hybrid that has arisen from two species of Ozothamnus, this genus is locally native with species occurring on a variety of soils. This cultivar grows to 1.2 m high and about 1 m wide. It has short crowded leaves about 1 cm long and terminal corymbs of pink flowers but not with the ray florets that come with many other daisies. They are likely quite hardy but may only last about 5 years. Prune to shape. It will create interest and colour.

O. diosmifolius in a council planting at Kirrawee (Ph: P. Shelton)

A lovely little shrub that is very waterwise, hardy and decorative. It gives a prolific display of deep pink flower buds in winter which gradually fade to light pink as the buds mature and open to a lemon colour in spring. The blooms are great for cut flowers, pick in bud for the best performance. The plant grows to around a metre high, and is useful for many different situations. Likes sun to part shade, and does well in all states of Australia. Tolerates light frost and drought once established. A light prune after flowering is beneficial.

Ozothamnus is a genus of about 53 species most of which are endemic to Australia. All of the Australian species were formerly classified in the genus Helichrysum. Ozothamnus diosmifolius was previously known as Helichrysum diosmifolium.

*This article is essentially from the APS Sutherland Group newsletter of which Peter Shelton is editor. Read this and other Group newsletters attached to our new Society web site.


Any Ideas?

Looking through my papers I noticed the advice given by Jann Mulholland of the notes to take if you propose to paint a flower or its foliage or background features. Jann was kind enough to talk to us on two occasions and I know from subsequent comments that members present enjoyed her presentations. The question is, “Did any one get an inspiration to use Jann’s advice in one way or another?”

Recently when members walked the Challenger Track at West Head they saw plants in flower and occasionly needed all the resources they had to identify them. With camera and sketches a la Jann’s advice there would have been no doubt, though still a little head scratching to find that among the nearly 30,000 natives of Australia.

If you took notes then it might be a great idea to pull them out again. Members were so delighted with the bushwalk they want another, and perhaps another It is unwise to battle the heat of summer but we can get lovely days in autumn and some native plants flower then. And then you can follow Jann’s lead next time.


Parramatta and Hills District Group

Email: apsparrahills@gmail.com
Website: https://austplants.com.au/Parramatta-And-Hills
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APSPARRAHILLS/