Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

A few species of Eucalypt are flowering profusely at the moment, in spite of dry conditions. Why does one specimen of a particular species flower, and another not? Local conditions play a part, but some of it is still a mystery. Still, we’ll take the benefits where we can get them.

Species in flower at the moment include Grey Box, Red Stringybark and Manna Gums, though such is the erratic nature of the flowering seasons that you can occasionally find other species unpredictably in flower.

Grey Box in flower, Forest Creek, Castlemaine.

Scientist, Alison Pouliot ©

Alison Pouliot is running her wonderful fungus forays and workshops again this year. This is a list of some that are reasonably close:

Saturday 23 April 2016 – Trentham   Foray – Fungus Foray in the Wombat Forest
Thursday 28 April 2016 – Woodend  Foray – A Foray Among the Funguses
Saturday 30 April 2016 – Baynton   Workshop – The Fungi: An Introduction to a Curious Kingdom
Monday 2 May 2016 – Baringhup Seminar ­- Fungi of Eddington Forest and Bells Swamp
Wednesday 25 May 2016 – Shelbourne Foray – Shelbourne Forest Fungus Foray
Sunday 29 May 2016 – Creswick Foray – A Foray Among the Funguses

You can find all the details of these and other workshops here.  

© Alison Pouliot

Where did the idea get about that our trees all ‘look the same’?

The problem has been around for a long time: in 1770 Captain Cook wrote about the NSW coast: ‘the woods do not produce any variety of trees.’ In 1836 Darwin claimed that ‘the extreme uniformity of the vegetation’ was ‘the most remarkable feature of the vegetation’ he observed in Australia. And in 1939 the poet AD Hope talked of the ‘drab green and desolate grey’ of our vegetation. And he compounded the insult by suggesting that the Australian people were just as monotonous…

Maybe these very worthy experts weren’t looking hard enough?

Our new exhibition of photos in Castlemaine is set to have a go at overturning the still widespread notion that our trees are monotonously uniform. Trees of the Mount Alexander Region mounted by the Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests will run at Togs Place café from 26 February till 31 March 2016. The exhibition aims to highlight the amazing variety to be seen in our local indigenous trees: even those of the same genus—for example, eucalypts—can exhibit a wild variety of shape and colour, as well as hosting an extraordinary diversity of wildlife.

One of the exhibition photos by Patrick Kavanagh (Nankeen Kestrel, Moolort Plains). Tree hollows are vital for the survival of much of our wildlife, so even dead trees can be important features of the land. This photo shows one of three fledglings raised in this hollow on the Moolort Plains. The other two have just ventured from the nest. This one seems to be stretching in preparation for the big step out.

The exhibition photos have been selected from over 125 photos that were submitted to FOBIF during December and January after a ‘call for photos’ was posted on our website. In June the exhibition will have a second showing at the new arts venue, the Newstead Railway Arts Hub. At this exhibition at least one photo from each contributor will be included in a continuous slideshow.

Photos will be for sale with proceeds going to FOBIF to cover costs.

Memberships and donations are rolling in

FOBIF wishes to thank all its members for the generous donations they have made both last financial year and this current year. In fact the donations received have totalled fifty percent of the membership payments.

Your generosity will enable FOBIF to continue with its projects to help keep the biodiversity of the Box-Ironbark Forests healthy and safe into the future.

If you haven’t yet paid your membership, forms are available here.

Certificate of Appreciation

Lisa Chesters, Federal Member for Bendigo, presented a certificate of appreciation to FOBIF in recognition of our contribution to strengthening community and supporting the volunteer sector as part of International Volunteer Day December 2015.  These are fine words and well deserved – and it was appreciated by the FOBIF Committee on behalf of our members.  Well done everyone!

This year’s FOBIF walks’ program has been finalised and can be viewed here. The first walk  (20 March) will be a combined FOBIF/Connecting Country event. The focus will be on birds and three experts will lead several short walks on Andrew Skeoch and Sarah Koschak’s property near Newstead. The meeting spot is still Continuing Education in Templeton Street (9.30am). However if you would like to meet in Newstead instead, ring Bronwyn Silver 5475 1089 or Tanya Loos 5472 1594 for details about an alternative meeting spot. More information on the walk can be found here.

There seems to be some kind of controversy bubbling about the Australian flag and Australia day in Castlemaine. FOBIF doesn’t get involved with debates of this kind, but we’re always looking for an excuse to celebrate, anyway.

And if we need to commemorate events which took place in 1788, how about this: in that year the Eucalyptus genus was first named for science, and the first description of a Eucalypt species published.

Messmates on Mount Alexander: it’s a tree which can vary in size from a small mallee to a forest giant, depending on conditions. Australians are a pretty variable lot.

Seeds of an unknown species had been collected from Bruny Island in Tasmania on Cook’s 1777 expedition, and taken to England. It took until 1786 for them to be got out and studied, by an amateur French botanist, Charles Louis L’Heritier de Brutelle, who invented the name, Eucalyptus, and called the tree in question, Eucalyptus obliqua—now commonly known as Messmate. The publication in which this was revealed to the world for the first time: Hortus Anglicus, publication date, Paris 1788.

Unfortunately, it seems that scholars have found that the book didn’t actually appear till 1789—but we don’t care. Isn’t it good Aussie practice to accept that near enough is good enough? And if you want to celebrate something Australian, surely  it’s hard to get anything more Australian than a Eucalypt?

Goldfields landscapes are dotted with mullock heaps: and one of the curiosities of these heaps of apparently useless rock is that they often feature quite healthy trees. How can these trees get a foothold in material you definitely wouldn’t be spreading around your garden?

Eucalyptus nortonii [L]and Eucalyptus melliodora [R] on a mullock heap at Spring Gully: vegetation can colonise surprisingly unpromising locations, and mullock heaps are among the more surprising.

We put this question to Castlemaine geologist Julian Hollis, and he suggested that one answer might be that pyrites in the heaps decay to a soluble material called melanterite, an iron sulphate which is sometimes used as a fertilizer: so, contrary to what we might think, there are plant nutrients in these rock heaps. Julian was open minded about what other explanations there might be, however. Suggestions welcome.

Not that you’d know about pressure and stress by reading the Parks Victoria Report. As is the nature of these documents, it’s nicely illustrated, and full of good news. It might be unfair to call the general tone gaga, but not very unfair. Here’s the introduction, by Chairman of Parks Victoria Board, Andrew Fairley:

PV Annual Report: ‘our throat has been cut, and we’re feeling just fine.’

‘At Parks Victoria, we believe the future is one of excellence, so we have changed how we operated during 2014–15 to significantly improve the way we deliver our services. … The deployment of a new operating model and a new structure in our regions, complemented by realignment across our Corporate Services divisions, has brought considerable transformation to our business…The Parks Victoria Board is extremely excited by these changes…’ Page 8

Get it? What it means  is, ‘Government funding dropped from $96 million to $76 million last year, and we’re doing great!’

A more sober version of the same thing is contained in the financial part of the Report , which nevertheless manages to say that PV ‘achieved’ a deficit of $6 million:

‘Parks Victoria achieved a net result from transactions of $6.226 million deficit for the 30 June 2015 financial year. This was in line with expectations and follows a challenging financial period due to a decline in funding for Parks Victoria’s core operations [FOBIF emphasis].Throughout the 2014–15 financial year Parks Victoria continued to drive operational improvements through a restructure of its Regional Services operations. ..’ page 25

It’s pretty clear from this report that budget cuts are only one problem for Parks. Just as important is the corporate speak that dresses up savage budget cuts as ‘improvements’.