Recent Posts
Pink flowering form
My Blueberry ash, Elaeocarpus reticulatus is looking pretty at this time of the year with its pink, fringed bell like flowers. The blue egg shaped 9 - 10mm long fruit will follow and ripen in about three months.
This large shrub or small tree is found mainly in rainforest areas and in moist coastal gullies from Tasmania to southern Queensland. The young foliage starts bronze changing to dark green as the plant matures. These trees start slowly, but will make an attractive specimen tree in protected areas free from frost.
Pink Eleocarpus flowers
The Banksia is a distinctive group of plants identified and named by Sir Joseph Banks in 1770. Botany Bay in Sydney got its name from a diary entry of Banks describing how his collection of plant samples had grown so large he was concerned they would spoil in the books. He took all his drying papers ashore, spread them out on a sail in the sun to dry them properly hence the name botany.
There are about 60 species of Banksia all growing in Australia, with one known exception, Banksia dentata which grows in New Guiniea. The flowers are rich in nectar and pollen providing food for honey eating birds and tiny marsupials, also attracting bees and insects. Black cockatoos are able to break open the seed pods with their strong beaks to feast on the seeds.
Indigenious Australians also feasted on the sweet flowers, some soaking the flowers in water to make a sweet drink called beal, others struck the flowers against their hands then licked off the nectar. If there were enough flowers the woman would collect the nectar in a coolamon by hitting the sides.
When the flowers die a dry fuzz remains on the central spike. Those successfully pollenated develop into velvet covered woody growths that look like swollen eyelids. In some species only a few develop giving the cob a slight human appearance, these were made famous in May Gibbs book snugglepot and cuddlepie. Each compartment holds two papery seeds that are released when heated, I put mine on a tray in the oven this works fine.
In their natural habitats Banksias are very hardy growing in poor coastal soil, in desert conditions, in infertile sandstone soils, and they even grow up in the alps. Most prefer well drained sandy soil with the odd one adapting to swamp conditions. All eastern varieties except Banksia denata are frost hardy evergreen trees ranging in height of 18 metres or more to prostrate forms that grow along the ground, with diverse leaf shapes.
Banksias are among the most most popular cultivated native Australian plants growing easily with a minimum of attention. Unfortunately though many of the western varieties wont grow in the eastern states because they suffer root rot.
Banksia ericofolia and Banksia serrata growing in native conditions.
Grasstree
These primitive plants consisting of about 20 species are said to have been on the Australian continent for over 100 million years, pre dating the eucalypts.
Grass trees are very slow growing and may live to a great age. Normal growth rate is about 2 or 3 centimetres a year or about 1 metre in 30 years. They generally reach a height of 2 or 3 metres with some varieties growing to more than 5 metres. Some of these taller plants may be 500 or more years old, putting them amongst some of the oldest living plants.
Xanthorrhoea are the most unlikely looking members of the lily family. Found only in Australia with species in all states, it is thought to only flower once or twice every fifty years. Many insects and honey eating birds feast on the nectar produced when in flower. After flowering fruit capsules producing a few hard seeds are formed, these seeds are poisonous to humans and domestic animals but harmless to native animals.
The usefulness of the grasstree was appreciated by the indigenous Australians who gathered the longicorn grub, often found burrowed in the trunk for food. They also made use of the long spikes in framework construction of their shelters with the leaves used as a kind of thatching, and a type of resin extracted from the charred wood was used to fix heads to their spears and axes.
Grass trees are well adapted to poor infertile soil and harsh conditions often found in arid, desert wastes, with the ability to survive bush fires. Another Australian beauty.
September 27th 2009 21:32
September 22nd 2009 23:52
I have always grown a few herbs in my garden, but after working alongside an older person who looked much younger then their years, putting their good health down to eating FRESH herbs. I started to think maybe I was not including enough fresh herbs in my own diet so began my real interest in growing herbs.
[ Click here to read more ]
|
|
|
Add Comments
Read More
Comment by Amanda Crotty
on Feeling
Garden Weekends
In the flower garden