Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

Fire Management officers are holding ‘open house’ sessions in our region in the next couple of weeks. Want to ask questions about about fire operations plans, project firefighter recruitment, firewood, pest plants and animals, traditional burning and related matters? Rock up and ask.

Fire officers say they’re interested in listening as well as providing info, so if you have a view on fire management, or knowledge of a particular area, go along and express it.

The two sessions closest to our region are in Castlemaine and Bendigo, as follows:

Bendigo Tuesday 22 August 4pm – 7pm Gateway Park Rotary Rooms,
22A High St, Kangaroo Flat 3555

Castlemaine Tuesday 29 August 4pm – 7pm Ray Bradfield Rooms,
Forest St, Castlemaine 3450

Wild Plants of the Castlemaine District by Ern Perkins had just been made available online! The guide gives identification, locations, preferred habitats and history of hundreds of native and introduced plant species found in Castlemaine and surrounding areas. It can be found here:  https://www.castlemaineflora.org.au

Chris Timewell from Connecting Country writes: ‘Ern’s passion for the understanding the intricacies of natural environment was matched by his passion for sharing his knowledge with others. A few months before his passing, he first launched this compendium of local plant species as a freely available resource via USB memory sticks. Ern had developed this guide based on information that he and others had collected and compiled over more than 40 years.’

Sample page from the online database.

For more information on the development of the guide and supporting organisations, see the Connecting Country site. FOBIF will soon have a permanent link to the site posted on its site.

At the junction of the Old Coach Road and the Fryers Ridge Road there’s an old fenced area, about 200 metres square. The fence isn’t in bad shape, but has been knocked down in a couple of places by falling tree branches, and tussocks in the enclosed area are clearly being grazed. Otherwise the vegetation in the enclosure is in pretty good shape.

Who put Who put up the fence? When?

This old metal tag is a sign that someone once took great care to identify plants in the Fryers exclusion plot…and the patch of Beard Heath it marks still survives, though a little bedraggled.

There have been a few initiatives in the past to protect patches of our bushland from overgrazing, mainly by sheep. One such was a proposal by Castlemaine Rotary in 1936 to establish wildflower sanctuaries around the shire. It seemed to run aground in the face of reluctance on the part of foresters to do anything about it. Could this fenced off area be the result of a community initiative which did get somewhere? We’d be interested in any informed answer.