Ok so I’ve actually been back a week two weeks, and I’ve been somewhat tied up in the lab working on my DNA extractions so I have only just had the chance, nay, the motivation to blog. And it’s an excellent form of procrastination! I don’t really want to start writing my thesis; yesterday I spent a good two hours working on the template for my chapters, but didn’t actually write anything…needless to say I will attempt to get onto that tonight…
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I’m still in two minds about the trip; on the one hand it was an incredible experience and I saw some pretty amazing things (from a geeky scientist’s point of view, anyway), but it was also much more stressful than I remember my Arid NSW trip being, especially the inevitable cabin fever. The problem with covering such a big area (2600kms total, from Coolangatta to Sydney and everywhere in between) is that most of the time you’re just driving along at 100kms an hour, stopping at random to look at plants that seem a little different – a practice I have dubbed Drive By Botany. The whole experience wasn’t helped by the fact that I got molested by MAF on the way back in because it was my supervisor’s name on the permit, and not mine.
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Anyway, there are some amazing sights in that part of the world; most people spend their time in NSW either in Sydney, or on the Pacific Highway travelling up to Brisbane, without having a look at the landscapes that exist only 100km or so westwards. These areas have some incredible subtropical and temperate rainforests, with the last remnants of ‘Gondwanan’ plants, including the Podocarpaceae (eg. rimu, kahikatea, miro etc in New Zealand) and Nothofagaceae (i.e. southern beeches) which dominate New Zealand’s flora and some amazing Araucariaceae such as the hoop pines, the same family as our kauri. In most other parts of Australia, these once dominant families have been marginalised by the sclerophyllic plants that have evolved in situ in response to changing climatic and soil conditions – genera such as Eucalyptus, Grevillea and Acacia. The Eucalypts in particular have come to dominate many of the wetter and dryer environments to produce wet and dry sclerophyllic communities, which are quite different in terms of their composition from the rainforests. Nonetheless, both are quite striking, and hugely different from the arid landscapes we encountered in the Far Western Plains.

Dry Littoral Rainforest
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Wet Sclerophyll Forest
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Dorrigo National Park – one of the last remnants of Podocarp Rainforest in Australia

Golden Orb Web Spider Nephila edulis
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Thorny Spider Cudman Reserve Dry Littoral Rainforest
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Thorny Spider Wollemi National Park

Of course there were the usual reptiles such as the skinks and snakes. Sadly, no photos of the snakes that we saw – a juvenile Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis) which hightailed as soon as it heard us coming and a Red Bellied Black Snake (Pseudechis porphyriacus) that was dozing on a track on the Watagans National Park before dashing off quickly just after I missed stepping on it!
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The highlight of the trip, of course, was my first run in with the the hirudineans – leeches! New Zealand has a few native leeches, but they aren’t really known to parasitise humans. Their Australian counterparts, however, are another story…I ran into my first one in the wet sclerophyll forests of Kyogle and the Richmond Range, and ran into them consistently all the way down to Sydney. They either ‘walk’ along the ground and then up your leg, or stand on leaves and wait for movement, before falling onto you and attaching for a bit of blood sucking. The annoying thing is that they bite with an anaesthetic, so you usually can’t feel them attach. then when they finally do drop off, or you rip them off, or burn them off with toothpaste, you continue to bleed due the fact they they also inject you with an anticoagulent. They grossed me out at first, but you tend to get used to them!

A leech after my leg
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My leg after a leech

There were some other awesome sights – huge beautiful moths, Hibiscus plants that look like Cannabis sativa at first glance, impressive epiphytic ferns and the beautiful chaotic flowers of the mistletoe Amyema congener. The sad thing is that these areas are under huge threat from introduced weeds, specifically Lantana and Madeira vine which form massive inpenetrable thickets that prevent forest regeneration. Considerable effort is being made to remove these and other weeds, which is vital to prevent the final loss of some of these ancient systems.

Random Beautiful Huge Moth
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Young Hibiscus heterophyllus plant…hmmmm…suspicious looking
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Hibiscus heterophyllus flower
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Epiphytic ferns – Richmond Range National Park
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Amyema congener flowers
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Me

As I was writing yesterday’s post, I happened across a few photos of a plant that I had been very eager to see while on my trip. It’s an iconic outback plant, and you really have to see it for yourself to experience it. It’s a truly remarkable sight:

The Swainsona genus is an iconic and ubiquitous Australian taxon, comprising >40 species spread throughout the dry arid zone, and along the wetter margins of the east and west coast. Swainsona is in the Fabaceae or pea family, which is one of the most widespread and diverse in Australia – particularly because of the Acacia genus (the wattles) of which there are approximately 800 species in Australia.Sturt’s Desert Pea, like much in the Outback, is named after the (in)famous 19th Century Explorer, Charles Sturt, who led an expedition into the centre of Australia in search of the ‘Great Inland Sea’. Needless to say, it didn’t end too well. It is an ephemeral plant, which means that it’s growth and reproduction occurs in response, or is timed to occur, after the seasonal rains that provide temporary relief to this harsh environment. It grows at an amazing rate, and is a sight to behold as it spreads across ephemeral creek beds, usually close to the ground in a way reminiscent of the The Red Weed

S. formosa growing across an ephemeral creek bed
at Dead Horse Gully, Sturt National Park.
[Click Image to Enlarge]

Close up
[Click Image to Enlarge]

In August and September last year I spent two weeks in the outback, around the area of Broken Hill, Fowlers Gap, and right up in the north-western corner at Sturt National Park, collecting plants for my Masters. I travelled with Tony and Viv Whitaker, who provided the most amazing field support. Tony, as I mentioned in my last post, is a herpetologist who travels all over the world doing field work for varied individuals and organisations. It was an absolute pleasure to travel with Tony and Viv, who were invariably optimistic and motivated in the face of the law of diminishing return.We flew into Sydney and then straight to Broken Hill, where we spent one night before heading onto the road up to Fowler’s Gap, a research station of the University of New South Wales. We stayed in a little single room cottage running solely of solar and wind power, of which there are plenty in the outback.

The Ochre Cottage

The Barrier Ranges around Broken Hill

The landscapes are just phenomenal; they really have to be seen to be believed. Gibber plains – the eroded remnants of billion year old mountain ranges represented today by the low lying Barrier Ranges – stretch on for hundreds of kilometres. The roads are criss-crossed dry creek beds that flood during the rains in winter, but remain dry for 90% of the year, bordered by Red River Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) which dominates the land along with Belah (Casuarina pauper), Mulga (Acacia aneura), Dead Finish (A. tetragonophylla) and millions of saltbushes, daisies and peas.

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A common sight

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A not so common sight – Swainsona fissimontana after rain

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Probably the hardest thing to grasp about the area is that every square metre, except for those in the National Parks, is farming land. Where you see the ground covered in nothing more than rock and sand, you will see fences. It is incredibly unproductive and extremely damaging on an already vulnerable environment. Communities essentially collapse there because the slow growing vegetation simply can’t withstand the herbivore pressure from cows, sheep, goats and kangaroos. Of course with the vegetation gone, the invertebrate and invertebrate communities also suffer. Not to mention the pressure on the Murray-Darling water system that farming here places. But of course, no one would dream of suggesting that farming ought not to be undertaken in the deep deep Outback because, well ‘it’s a way of life’. One that probably won’t last too much longer.

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Grazed Land at Fowler’s Gap

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Non-Grazed Land at Fowler’s Gap – The Mulga Reserve

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The land to the left of the fence is grazing land.
The land to the right has been fenced off for 30 years (the Emu Pen).

After Fowler’s Gap, we stayed in Sturt National Park, a protected area in the topmost corner of New South Wales. We stayed at the Mount Wood Historic Homestead, administered by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services and run by the amazing head ranger, Ingrid. Ingrid was a German PhD student studying kangaroos at Fowlers Gap who fell in love with the Outback and its kangaroos, and now nurses orphaned joeys back to health – with the help of pillowcases as surrogate pouches. She has an incredible amount of energy and passion for her job, which was inspiring. We should all hope to love our jobs with that much passion. The lack of grazing in SNP has allowed for a fantastic regeneration of the vegetation – where in Fowler’s Gap the land was barren and rocky, the plains of SNP are covered with beautiful herbs and shrubs.

Ingrid and her ’son’  

You can see why she fell in love with them…

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The outback is a harsh but beautiful place. It can kill you easily if you’re not careful or prepared. But if you look closely enough you can see a world of colour and life, animals and plants that are so beautifully adapted to their environment, unique in their evolutionary histories. I hope that more Australians get the chance to experience it, and learn to treasure it.

Me

View my slideshow here

As the kids say: w00t! Just got confirmation today that my next field trip to Australia is about to begin – heading out to the coastal areas of northern New South Wales to traipse around the sub-tropical rainforest there in search of my plants.I will be going for 14 days from some time in mid- to late-march with the incredible Tony and Viv Whitaker, who came with me on my last trip to the Outback. Tony is one of New Zealand’s leading herpetologists and has some experience in handling snakes, so I couldn’t be in safer hands, given that we will be entering the territory of the Taipan and the Eastern Brown Snake. Neat! I hope to see some so that I can get some pictures…

Very very excited!!!

Well! Yesterday’s rant put me in a bit of a foul mood, so what better to clear the air than perusing through another botanical treasure! This week I thought I would include something non-native (despite my assurances I would mostly stick to natives! Ha!), but an absolute delight nonetheless:Leopardwood – Flindersia maculosa

In August and September of last year I made my first field trip to Australia for my Masters. My project involves comparisons between arid and wet-coastal plants, so my first trip was to the arid regions of New South Wales, in the area in and around Broken Hill. I’ll probably post some photos later, but it was such an experience! For those of us from New Zealand, it’s simply an alien landscape: so dry, so dusty and so so red. More on that later…

Anyway, my absolute favourite plant from that area is Leopardwood, a member of the Rutaceae family – the family most well known for the Citrus genus. The joy of Leopardwood is revealed when you get up close -it has this fantastic spotty bark that gives the tree it’s common name. After seeing boring Casuarina and Acacia for hundreds of kilometres, its a treat to see something a little different!