Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

FOBIF has once again questioned Parks Victoria about its track maintenance policy, after complaints from members about track works in the Fryers Flora Reserve and the Diggings Park. Complaints centred around the tonnes of blue metal put on some of the tracks, and the relentless widening of some roads.

Parks has advised us that recent works are mainly part of flood recovery works. The blue metal on the roads will be gradually packed into the surface. It’s visually not great, but may perform some useful function. More important is the fact that tracks seem to get wider every time work is done on them. This time, the work was done by contractors from Melbourne, who appear to have been given no briefing about how to handle road verges.

Near Tk: the apparently unanswerable question seems to be, how wide does a track need to be?

FOBIF has no problem with roads and tracks being maintained for important purposes, like fire management. Our problem is that over the years we have tried without success to get an answer to a very  simple question: what is the maximum width of a bush track? Given that we’ve measured some of them as wider than the Pyrenees Highway, it seems to be, Pretty Wide.

Wombat Forestcare has produced a handy guide to the Fungi of the Wombat Forest and Macedon Ranges. The guide comes in the form of a hardy folder, and has over a hundred large postage sized photos with succinct information on the species illustrated.  Although some of these species are more prominent in the wetter forests than they are in Mount Alexander region, the guide references many which can be found in the woodlands of the box ironbark country.

The folder has been produced for the Forestcare group by Alison Pouliot, and contains much useful info in addition to the species photos. Among other things, it warns that ‘knowledge about the edibility of  Australian fungi is scant and deadly poisonous species exist in Australia.’ Uninformed sampling of fungi is definitely not a good idea. It’s worth noting that even in Europe, where community familiarity with fungi is better developed than here in Australia, it’s been estimated that 50-100 people die from fungal poisoning each year. This is known, rather macabrely, as the ‘try and die’ method of getting to know fungi.

A much better idea is to get to know them for their beauty and ecological importance. The folder is available from Wombat Forestcare for a reasonable $6.00.  FOBIF has a limited number of folders, which we can sell to members on monthly walks at the recommended retail price.

The photo below shows ecologist Paul Foreman doing a briefing on Mount Alexander on plans to boost the population of Southern Shepherd’s Purse with a special seeding program.

The plant [Ballantinia antipoda] is found only on the Mount, and its population has been under pressure in recent decades for various reasons. It thrives on moss mats covering granite sheets on the upper slopes.

Briefing on Mount Alexander: the Ballantinia is dependent on the moss mats over granite sheets on the Mount, which is the only place on earth the plant still lives.

FOBIF’s moss propaganda campaign resumed last weekend with a tour of Clinker’s Hill run by Cassia Read for beginners interested in getting a hook on this plant domain. Participants were introduced to a few general ideas on the nature and importance of moss, and given a look at ten species growing in the area’s gullies and tracksides.

Several photos were taken during this workshop, but we decided to protect the innocent by not publishing them here. Instead, to give an idea of what a true moss expert should look like, we produce the photo below, from the British Bryological Society.

Disturbing behaviour of moss enthusiast. Readers are assured, however, that gumboots are rarely required in our climate. Photo: British Bryological Society 2004

The gumboots are a giveaway that the picture wasn’t taken in our region recently: but the necessity to peer in to dark damp holes may be something we’ll have to face if the present dry conditions continue.