The botanical life of a plant punk, and the story of a seaweed

Posted on 8 April, 2024 by fobif

The guest speaker at the monthly meeting of the Castlemaine Field Naturalists will be Professor Tim Entwisle.

Professor Entwisle is an author, botanist and former director of botanic gardens in Melbourne, Sydney and London. He also lived for a few years at Yapeen and completed his final years of secondary school at Castlemaine High School. His 2022 memoir “Evergreen: the Botanical Life of a Plant Punk” will be the subject of his talk this coming Friday. He will explain why he became a botanist (and phycologist) and some of the highlights of his three decades working in, and visiting, botanic gardens around the world.

Tim will also share with us the story of a seaweed (an alga) called Entwisleia bella, and how this came to be named after him. (He’ll bring some books for sale and signing).

It’s on  this Friday 12th April, 7.30pm, Uniting Church Fellowship Room, Lyttleton St. Castlemaine

All are welcome.

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FOBIF walk, 21 April 2024

Posted on 4 April, 2024 by fobif

Loddon River, Baringhup: walk along stories

Walking along the Loddon River for 8 km, we go north from Baringhup. It is on public and private land with a mix of natural, cultural and historical layers. Traversing farmland and the edge of the Moorlort Plains, it is flat and gently undulating, there will be a few fences to climb and some unformed tracks. 

Meet at 9.30 am outside 30 Templeton Street, Castlemaine (Castlemaine Community House)  or 9.45 am at O’Sullivan-Tilley Memorial Park Baringhup Sturdy shoes, long pants and gaiters if possible, as it will be grassy and uneven with a few fences to climb.

Bring lunch and morning tea.

This is a one-way walk, and we have the Community Bus to shuttle people back to their cars.

For more info call Gen Blades 0431 371 065 or Lisa Hall 0488 102 191.

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One for the Ages

Posted on 18 March, 2024 by fobif

A strong group took on FOBIF’s first walk for the year yesterday, to the Rock of Ages in the Nuggety Ranges. The recent dry weather has given the hills a real feel of late summer dustiness, but in this context the seven species of wattle observed stood out for greenery. The group also noted three species of mistletoe on a single tree. The views from Mount Moorul/The Rock of Ages are as always, spectacular. There’s something very special about this spot, enhanced by the presence of many bushes of the very rare Flat-leaf Bush-pea Pultenaea platyphylla. There are many reasons to return to this spot, one of them to see this species in flower (see first photo below).

Photos by Barb Guerin, Bernard Slattery and Bronwyn Silver.

Frances Cincotta sent us the following report:

“The walk was mostly under Long-leaved Box trees with some Grey Box, Yellow Box and Red Box. Walkers were challenged to count up how many Wattles we saw along the walk and we agreed at the end there had been 8 species,with Hedge Wattle being the most numerous, then some Gold-dust, Varnish, Lightwood, Spreading, Golden and  Black Wattles, and the introduced Cootamundra Wattle.

We were interested to see on one old Black Wattle tree three different species of mistletoe – Drooping, Grey and Harlequin. Mistletoes are very important local species from an ecological point of view as they are host plants for butterfly larvae, provide food for nectar feeders when they are in flower, and later berries for birds such as the Mistletoebird. Mistletoes are parasitic in that they tap into the vascular system of host trees, robbing them of water and nutrients, but usually they do not kill their host. Mistletoes are often called “hemi-parasites” as they do have chlorophyll in their leaves and make some of their own food.

There wasn’t much in flower on the walk – some of the Long-leaf Box trees bore cream flowers, and a few Magenta Stork’s bill added a splash of hot pink to the understorey, and amongst the granite boulders at the Rock of Ages were some Rock Isotomes still in flower (though they are at their peak in October). We expected the Rock Correas to be in flower but they all looked rather stressed and were not flowering yet. We were pleased to see the Flat-leaf Bush-pea plants doing well there – a threatened species.”

Our thanks to Bronwyn Silver for guiding us up the hill—and down again. And to Frances Cincotta for her entertaining pauses for plant identification.

Next month’s walk is to the Loddon River at Baringhup. Check the program for details.

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’40 degrees and 40 illegal fires on Victoria’s long weekend’!

Posted on 16 March, 2024 by fobif

Here’s a press release from the Conservation Regulator this week:

‘Conservation Regulator and Forest Fire Management Victoria Authorised Officers patrolled campsites statewide and detected more than 40 campfires still alight during a Total Fire Ban, a number that could have been much higher had officers not intervened to prevent several people from also lighting fires.’

The authorities are ‘deeply disappointed’ by this dereliction. Chris Hardman, Chief Fire Officer of Forest Fire Management, offers this advice: ‘Even if it’s not a declared Total Fire Ban day, campers must reassess their need for a fire in warm, dry and windy conditions.’

OK, good kindly advice–but maybe it’s time for regulators to enter the twentyfirst century, and face the fact that no one has a need for an outdoor fire in our summer. Fires should be banned in the fire season.

Here’s another kindly reflection, from Parks Victoria:

‘Sitting around a glowing campfire is one of the joys of camping, but with ten per cent of bushfires caused by unsafe campfires, it’s essential to follow the rules and do the right thing.’

The ‘right thing’ is to acknowledge that in cool summer conditions you can put on a jumper, and you probably won’t get hypothermia.

And Parks Victoria might want to give away the romantic maunderings about glowing campfires, and focus on telling people how to survive the summer without setting fire to the bush.

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Moron of the century–new nomination in!

Posted on 16 March, 2024 by fobif

Readers will remember FOBIF’s occasional tilt at one of Australia’s weirdest windmills: the car commercial. We doubt whether the advertising industry will ever invent a more cretinous TV ad than AAMI’s attempt to persuade us that children should prefer to be driven to school rather than scoot along under their own power. Even so, we thought we’d offer Toyota Hilux as a genuine contender for the crown of worst commercial ever. You can find it here. It’s getting a good run in sports TV programs currently.

If you can struggle past the twee and rather queasy joke about the car being a beloved child, you’ll notice the usual images—the car being driven recklessly at the sea’s edge, for example:

Dumb and dumber: the current Hilux ad.

Many people will see this and think…Hang on: isn’t sea water pretty corrosive? Yes, it is. In fact, there’s a line in fine print below the image: ‘Pre-production model shown. Wash with fresh water immediately after salt water exposure.’ In other words: ‘Charge along the beach—then, rush home and spend a happy time washing the salt off your car!’

Such ads are completely at odds with the supposed advertising standards, but the Code of Practice and the Ad Standards Bureau are useless in controlling  them.Our reader Greg Jacobs, responding to this issue in 2019, summed it up pretty well:

‘The car ads are stupid in many ways -smashing thru the areas you have supposedly come to explore –you don’t camp on riverbanks re flood, mosquitoes, cold off the water. You don’t smash your way up a mountainside -proper 4 wheel drive clubs hate these types (RACV doesn’t answer to rolled vehicles on hillsides). You don’t drive to or park on the edges of cliffs–something to do with health and safety? You don’t drive beyond your capability nor your car’s capability –some vehicles promoted are heavy ,oversized tubs. You don’t speed thru forests on dirt roads– other suckers may be coming the other way and you may hit a tree or two when you hit the gravel.’

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