Tasmanian Plants

Since time immemorial, mountains have held special meaning to humans, and coming from a place where the tallest point in the landscape was a measly 169m high, I took the first available opportunity to visit the most accessible mountain when I arrived in Hobart. Thus began my love affair with Mt Wellington. Mt Wellington became my outdoor classroom. I frequented the walking tracks on mountain but I never walked far due to my photographic compulsions. Whatever little distance I managed to cover on foot was sufficient to convince me of the diversity of botanical life on the mountain. Browsing through the scientific literature, I was amazed to discover that the Mt Wellington Range was a stronghold for about a third of Tasmania’s higher plants and up to 60% of Tasmania’s bryophyte flora. I was duly impressed. Appreciation grew.

Those years back when I was doing my undergraduate course, Dr Rob Wiltshire conducted an excursion up the mountain as part of an ecology course to show sophomores the adaptations of eucalypt species to altitude. The class was brought up to the subalpine woodland to look at how eucalypt seedlings cope with frost and excess light. The exercise involved some walking and I took the opportunity to look around for anything flowering. By that stage of my academic life, I must have, I believe, unwittingly gained a reputation for being an incessant questioner, particularly when it came to the identity of plants. Perhaps Rob wanted to silence me before I could ask anything and he pointed to a dark handsome silhouette of a shrub on the rock boulders by the roadside and exclaimed, “Ahhh, do you know what that is?” Of course I did not but I took a stab at it anyway and I was That was when Rob sagaciously replied, with an inflection I can only imagine was meant for dramatic effect, “That’ll be the rare endemic tree daisy, Brachyglottis brunonis.”

I was duly impressed and intrigued. Members of the sunflower family (Asteraceae) such as daisies and groundsels are usually thought of as herbs, particularly in European countries, but then in temperate Australia, tree daisies appear to be a common theme. I learnt later that the tree was named after famed Scottish botanist Robert Brown, hence the specific epithet ‘brunonis‘. Vernacularly, the tree was known variously as the Tree Groundsel, Tasmanian Daisytree or Brown’s Tree Daisy. Interestingly, the only other species of Brachyglottis occur in New Zealand.

My reveries on daisytrees were short-lived in the face of academic pressures. Visits to the mountain trickled.

The final year of my undergraduate studies arrived and one academic unit which piqued my interest was Plant Science Research, in which I would get a chance to try out a mini-project of my own. I toyed with the notion of studying a rare or endemic plants and I felt again the call of the mountain, and remembered the Tasmanian Daisytree, which was both rare and endemic. I sought Rob out and he graciously agreed supervise me on the academic endeavour. We fine-tuned the objectives of the study, which would be to furnish an explanation on why the Tasmanian Daisytree is rare within it’s habitat range. The Tasmanian Daisytree is limited to Mt Wellington and a few other nearby locations. It’s distribution does not exceed 50 square kilometers and it is further restricted only to subalpine woodlands. In it’s habitat, it is also found scattered in a very disjointed manner and there was no obvious reason why this should be so since the subalpine habitat was apparently rather uniform. When we eventually analysed the data we collected and compared the vegetation and environmental factors of areas with and without the Tasmanian Daisytree, little useful information emerged. Areas with and without the Tasmanian Daisytree were not extremely different in terms of their vegetation or environment. Other forces must be responsible for preventing the Tasmanian Daisytree from attaining ubiquity! As far as speculations go, the Tasmanian Daisytree is probably stopped cold in it’s tracks at the seed or seedling stage. We did notice in our preliminary surveys that seedlings of the tree daisy were exceedingly rare.

Limited as the study was, more questions were raised than answered, which is, as I have come to believe, a trend that drives the heartbeat of scientific inquiry. Why the Tasmanian Daisytree chooses to be where it is may remain a mystery for some time and I hope to see one day when I sleuth through the scientific literature, a paper on the lines of: Towards an explanation of the rarity of Brachyglottis brunonis.

In all likelihood, the Tasmanian Daisytree originated on the mountain, and has never managed to move far. It’s rarity only serves to endear one to it’s presence, and presents the all so pleasurable challenge of spotting it among the ocean of other common plants. I can see the Tasmanian Daisytree as no less than the mascot tree of Mt Wellington, the prime botanical feature of Hobart’s Table Mountain. I imagine that the great nature photographer Peter Dombrovskis might thought similarly of the iconic status of the Tasmanian Daisytree when he immortalized in one of his great photographs, a scene of the tree against a backdrop of the weathered face of the Organ Pipes that so characterizes the mountain.

I envision that all genuine nature-loving Tasmanians should come to know the iconic tree of the Mountain that oversees Hobart. But the surest way to get acquainted with the tree daisy is still via a guide. You must be asked to look, and given ample opportunity to feel and smell, for it is likely that only then will you recognize. Then, even without it’s brilliant yellow blossoms you will see and recognize the distinctive dark shiny leaves, it’s charismatic branching and the sweet scent of it’s foliage. And forever will it be burned into your memory when your guide then utters in utmost authority: “That’ll be the rare endemic tree daisy, Brachyglottis brunonis.”

(Dedicated to Dr Rob Wiltshire)

Eucalyptus viminalis (White Knight)

It is common knowledge that the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) is the worlds tallest flowering tree and that Tasmania has some of Australia’s tallest old growth forests. So magnificent are the Mountain Ashes that significant individuals  have earned appellations such as ‘Centurion’ and ‘Methuselah’. Alas, the legend of the Mountain Ashes have overshadowed the other giants that reside in Tasmania. There are other giants among the eucalypts that are worthy of more general recognition, and it may come as a surprise to some that the White Gum (Eucalyptus viminalis) is one of them.

Practically every plant enthusiast in Tasmania and many tourists who visit the state has seen the grand Mountain Ashes of the Styx or the Tarkine. Few however, even among Tasmanian botanists, have met or are even aware of the giant White Gums of Tasmania’s Northeast. This is because White Gums are often thought of as average sized trees  associated with dry forest. Yet, in the Evercreech Forest Reserve just 10km from Fingal, a forest of giantic white gums, locally called White Knights, preside over the wet forests. For centuries they have watched, like silent sentinels from their statuesque vantage point, the changing landscape of Tasmania’s Northeast. The time is nigh for the White Knights to take their rightful place in the annals of Tasmania’s rich botanical heritage, for nowhere else in the world does one encounter white colossuses such as these.

Another magnificent White Gum in stark contrast to the verdant wet forest understorey

In the 1970s a forester named Des Howe was carrying out a routine survey in the forest about to be fell when he noticed that one of the trees that was to be felled was very tall. A surveyor came in and measured the tree to be an incredible 91m. A more accurate measurement of 89m was later given in the gianttrees website. Girth-wise, the White Knight is just as impressive, being 3.3m in diameter. The White Knight is also believed to be over 300 years old. Due to the presence of the White Knight, 52 hectares in the area was made a forest reserve to preserve the White Knight and other giant White Gums that reside there.

The story goes that botanists initially did not believe that the tall tree reported by the Forestry Commission was a White Gum until leaf and fruit specimens were brought before them. Likewise for me, my experience of the white gum being a average size tree of dry forest was so ingrained that I would have scarcely believed that the White Knights were White Gums until I saw the characteristic seed capsules myself.

It is not difficult to see how the first foresters who came before the presence of the giant white gums likened the trees to Knights, perhaps spotting shiny-clad armour. White has always been the colour of purity and goodness, and there is nothing quite like the sight of Brobdingnagian white boles standing in blazing contrast to a deep green forest understorey. And I am properly awed and impressed, just as the visitors before me that have come to pay their obeisance to the White Knights.

The elephantine girth of the White Knight

It is most remiss of me, that I should write of one of Tasmania’s most iconic trees only now, after more than a year of blogging about Tasmania’s fantastic flora.

Introducing a tree that needs little introduction – Tasmania’s one and only deciduous native tree, the inimitable Nothofagus gunnii, the Deciduous beech, the Tanglefoot. There are those too, who simply call it the Fagus.

The Deciduous beech is a small tree from the beech family (Fagaceae). It reaches little more than 2 meters at the slightly lower altitudes but practically sprawls over boulders in the alpine zones. It is a mere dwarf compared to it’s much more widespread relative, the Myrtle beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii).

The legacy of the Deciduous beech however predates that of the Myrtle beech. As far as geological time is concerned, the latter is a much younger player in the biogeographical game.

Fossils very similar to that of the modern day Deciduous beech have been found in Antarctica, which leads one to conclude
very similar species were in Antarctica before Australia separated from that now snowed out landmass.

The deciduous nature of N. gunnii also leads one to think that deciduous-ness might have been a much more common feature of the Tasmanian tree flora in times past.

Alas, this is not really the easiest plant to visit. The Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens (RTBG) has at least one specimen, but it is a small one hardly more than 50cm tall, and it is largely obscured by other plants.

Obscured! That’s criminal, particularly given that an illustration of the deciduous beech graces the signboard at the entrance of the RTBG. Still, that is one of the closest places to civilization that one may visit this icon.

Most understandably, the Deciduous beech must be one of Tasmania’s most difficult-to-cultivate icon. It takes a long time to grow, if it even survives. Still, once it harmonizes with a sincere plants-person, a most exquisite bonsai plant the Deciduous beech will make.

But the connoisseur will seek the Deciduous beech in it’s highest abode. The true seeker must travel to the mountains to the west, during April of the Austral fall. They must drive west bound, up windy beaten roads, through the grand forest of the Mountain Ash. And where the road ends by the Dobson Lake, they must by foot alone traverse boulder and tarn, beyond where the highland gums surrenders to frost and exposure. Then, and only then, does the sincere seeker arrive at the Tarn shelf, a true mecca of nival endemicity, where the deciduous beech basks upon the alpine boulders in it’s most exposed, most brazen magnificence.

And then one may say that one has witnessed the leaf fall of the last of Tasmania’s deciduous, the yellow of the autumn Fagus.

In Tasmania’s heaths, herbfields, cliffs, lake margins and among cushion plant communities of the Northwestern and Central highlands lurk one of Tasmania’s most elusive botanical secrets – a little lily that hails from a botanical lineage of great antiquity.

First though, we must clarify what exactly is a lily.

The natural history and taxonomic relationships within the large family of lilies (Liliaceae) often vexed botanists in the pre-molecular age. After botanists became well accustomed to assigning the appellation of ‘lily’ to a great many species of plants, the molecular blade swiftly and decisively ended the empire of the the lily family. Asparagus (Asparagus spp.), the onions (Allium spp.), the pineapple lilies (Astelia) etc.,  became allied to other plant Orders (as will be elaborated in another post!).

Some of the remaining members of what was once the Liliaceae still remain in what is considered an Order of Lilies, the Liliales. However, the members of this once colossal lily family grouped into smaller families of their own.

One family of lilies, the Campynemataceae, is of paramount interest. Molecular work based of the gene sequences of the RuBisCo enzyme (rbcL) that is present in the chloroplasts of all plants, tells us that the Campynemataceae lineage is the oldest among all that can still be considered a part of the great lily order. In 2004, researchers Thomas Janssen and Kårl Bremer compared the rbcL sequences of representatives of the families in the Lily Order and estimated the Campynemataceae lineage to have come into existence some 117 million years ago, as a sister group to all other families of the Lily Order.

The lily I have deemed to be one of Tasmania’s most elusive botanical secret is Campynema lineare (Green Mountainlily), a representative of the Campynemataceae.

C. lineare is endemic to Tasmania and is the only species in its genus, and Campynema is one of the two genera in the family. The only other members of this family is a genus of three species, the Campynemanthe, that hails from New Caledonia.

C. lineare is a slender herb up to almost half a meter in height, but usually much smaller in highland areas. The leaves are linear as the specific epithet ‘lineare‘ suggests’ but highly inconspicuous when the plant is not in flower. The blossoms are scarcely 2 cm across, with yellowish-greenish floral parts, borne on a brownish stem. This combination does not help in making it stand out well from the surround vegetation. Before releasing pollen however, the bright orange stamens do stand out quite clearly against the greenish floral parts, but in most other respects, C. lineare is a rather inconspicuous plant and not largely different from what anyone would call a ‘lily’.

A casual observer would not have guessed that it is a relict of ancient lilies. Probably not even Jacques Labillardière, the french botanist who described the genus in 1805, guessed that he was beholding a botanical gem.

But the time of awareness is nigh. In this digital and molecular age, inconspicuousness can no longer be an excuse for the lack of recognition suffered by this marvelous plant. It is time for the little Green Mountainlily to take it’s rightful place among the ranks of Tasmania’s iconic plants. Like the Delicate Laurel (Tetracarpaea tasmannica), we must sometimes know of the historical significance of such plants before we can truly appreciate their contribution to botanical heritage of this land we call Tasmania, a home to plant lineages of great antiquity.

A great deal of life’s most positive philosophy can be gleaned from a healthy obsession with plants. Let me elaborate.

1. LIFE IS FOR APPRECIATING
Everywhere a plant lover goes, there are green things to appreciate. Plants are everywhere. Phytoplankton abounds in the open ocean. In the Death Valley, one of the driest places on earth, seeds are lying in wait for the next rain. Even in the Arctic and the Antarctica, there are plants. But the bulk of plant lovers are not going to be in those harsh habitats, which means that where they are, they are usually SURROUNDED by plants. Imagine being around that which gives you joy on a constant basis. Not to mention the diversity of that the vegetable world adds to our choice of food, whether in the kitchen or in the bush. There is indeed so much to appreciate that there is no time for thoughts on loss.

2. LIFE IS FOR DESIRING…AND SEEING
The plant lover hears of or sees a photo or illustration of a plant he/she has never seen before. The desire to know and see this new plant duly becomes another reason to live another day. I have accumulated a long too-see-list. A plant lover thus is a philosopher of sorts, a lover of knowledge! Perhaps more accurately, a plant lover is a philovoyant (a made-up word of philos and voir, meaning ‘lover of’ and ‘to see’ respectively) – a plant lover loves to SEE!

3. LIFE IS FOR GIVING
There is nothing more a plant lover desire to do more than something plant-related. This may involve studying or planting them which ultimately results in some form of writing about them, talking about them, displaying them in photographs or illustrations etc. All these activities are forms of giving. In the heart of every plant lover is the desire to share of the magic in what he/she sees!

4. LIFE IS ONE (it is co-evolutionary)
It is true that plants and other animals would continue to exist if humans were taken out of the picture. But really, that statement doesn’t make any philosophical sense. It arises from a one-sided and unenlightened perspective. Consider for a moment that plants and man are partners in co-evolution. Consider that we (the humans) present one of the most powerful evolutionary forces for our plant counterparts, just as they (the plants) have shaped the course of our history and will shape the course of our future. We are the impetus for their change! And the plant world is changing, and not necessarily for the worst. New and wondrous forms will continue to arise, even while we let the old depart gracefully. Rarity becomes treasured and cherished. There is nothing to save. There is only that to embrace and as always, there is joy in the process.

5. THE JOY OF LIFE IS IN THE JOURNEY
There is no end to the seeking of a plant lover. In fact, there is no end to anything. Plant lovers are in a privileged position to understand this. Lifetimes can come and go, and they would just only have scratched the surface with regards to the things they want to see or do. So we must give up. We must surrender and accept that life is just a journey. There is no sin and no end to desiring and experiencing more, more, MORE. There is only this moment of joy, the interim moment, and then next beautiful thing comes along. Yes. It is that hedonistic. The joy is in the journey.

What can I say. The best of botany distils to this: BE A PLANT LOVER, or rather find things to love, and plants will almost inevitably become one of them!

A single field trip up toward the Central Highlands offers plenty for a plant lover to see and do. One thing that must be done however, is to pay homage to the cider gums (Eucalyptus gunnii) of the highland areas.

This cider gum is a tree of immense significance to Tasmania’s natural history. It is aptly named the cider gum for it’s sap, which has been reported to be used by the aborigines to make a much relished fermented drink (see article). I  was way too late to experience the spring sap that allegedly drips from the tree inviting all to partake of it’s sweetness. What would I give to try that out! It would be one of the most direct means of communion with the cider gum. On this occasion however, my objective was merely to make an acquaintance with the Cider Gum in it’s natural abode.

I drove along the Highland Lakes road north of Miena hoping to catch sight of some cider gums. There are two known subspecies, both of which are endemic to Tasmania. The more common one, E. gunnii subsp. gunnii (simply referred to as the cider gum) is well distributed throughout the highland regions of the southeast, central, and western Tasmania. The other subspecies, E. gunnii subsp. divaricata is known as the Miena Cider Gum, and has a much more restricted distribution to a small area around Miena around the Central Highland lakes. It’s status as a subspecies of the commoner cider gum was only recently elucidated in a publication by Prof. Brad Potts, Dr Wendy Potts and Dr Gintaras Kantvilas in 2001. Previously, the Miena Cider Gum was known as Eucalyptus divaricata.

I practically screeched to a halt when I sighted just by the side of the road, two large and stately trees which I suspected might be the Miena Cider Gum.

I got out and scanned the surrounds. There were quite a number of dead trees in the vicinity but these two trees were different. They exuded a vibe of vitality. I studied them intently, looking out for characters that might give me an opportunity for identification.

A low hanging branch gave me access to photograph a cluster of their leaves and their capsules. The adult leaves also had a slightly pale whitish (glaucous) appearance and there was the persistence of very glaucous, rounded and oppositely arranged juvenile leaves.

Prof Pott’s paper had mentioned that the capsules of the Miena Cider Gum also tend to be more glaucous. The capsules are supposedly a slightly more sub-urned shaped compared to the more consistently bell shaped capsules of the commoner subspecies.

The combination of characters of the Miena Cider Gum seemed to match the specimen I was looking and I am happy to conclude that that was what my specimen was.

More important than the dry an technical act of nailing an subspecific identity to the tree however, was the feeling of communion. Few experiences compare to an acquaintance with trees of such haunting magnificence and presence. There is no words for it, only feelings that linger. Silence would probably make the best conveyance of this.

The Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus), Tasmanian Waratah (Telopea truncata), Deciduous Beech (Nothofagus gunnii), Myrtle Beech (Nothofagus cunninghamii) and Pandani (Richea pandanifolia) are names that are often cited by plant enthusiasts and bushwalkers guidebooks as ‘must-sees’ of Tasmania.

But these five iconic plants, showy and famous as they are, must defer to THE ONE TRUE ICON plant that represents Tasmania — the Delicate Laurel (Tetracarpaea tasmannica). The popular portraiture of Tasmania’s botanical gems must be expanded to exalt the Delicate Laurel and to remedy it’s unfortunate oversight.

(Yes I am being evangelical).

The Delicate Laurel is by no means an uncommon plant. It occurs in wet forest or more often, subalpine shrubberies in the western mountains. The plant blends quite immaculately into the surrounding scrub and is not extremely prominent unless in flower, the erect flower stalks bearing small odd-looking white flowers with 4-5 oversized carpels (female parts). Without consciously looking for it however, Tetracarpaea would be quite easy to overlook whilst hiking pass the lush shrubbery vegetation. Once known however, the plant is easily recognizable by it’s thick leathery serrated leaves. The brown dry fruits (folicles) are also quite distinctive.

Distinctive as it is, the history of how the plant was named and classified has been fraught with difficulty and confusion (See Tasmanian Flora online profile).

The eminent botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker is often attributed with having named and described the plant in but it has only recently been clarified that it was his father, Sir William Jackson Hooker that had found and described the plant (The original illustration of the plant in Sir William Hooker’s Icones Platarum may be found here). It was also only recently that the correct species epithet ‘tasmannica‘ was reinstated, as opposed to the commonly but mistakenly used ‘tasmanica‘.

Botanists also have had difficulty determining the affinities of this enigmatic little shrub. They variously thought it to be related to the Horizontal bush (Anodopetalum biglandulosum), the Native Laurel (Anopterus glandulosus), and even Saxifrages. Only recently have molecular methods demonstrated that the closest relatives of Tetracarpaea are actually raspworts (Gonocarpus spp. and Haloragis spp.) and watermilfoils (Myriophyllum spp.). Still, the unique traits of the Delicate Laurel dictate that it is best placed in a family of it’s own, the Tetracarpaeaceae.

So there we have it. A true botanical orphan found ONLY in Tasmania.

The ONLY species in the genus.

The ONLY genus in the plant family Tetracarpaeaceae.

A prime example of Tasmania’s botanical heritage.

Forget about beeches, waratahs, pandanis and blue gums for a moment. These long revered icons have been discussed, photographed, drawn and stylized in Australian art ad nauseum. A true connoisseur of plants visiting Tasmania for the first time must embark on a montane pilgrimage and pursue first and foremost the one and only Tetracarpaea.

There are rather few genera of native Tasmanian plants that share the same genus as the common economic food plants we see in the market everyday. Some examples might come as a surprise however. For instance, Tasmania has one native plant which is a close relative of the CARROT!

The carrot of commerce is botanically known as Daucus carota spp. sativa. In the wild, the species is often referred to as Wild Carrot or Queen Annes Lace. The carrot belongs to the Celery family (Apiaceae), a large botanical family which also includes many plants which will immediately be familiar to the general public, eg fennel, parsley, parsnip, pennyworts, caraway and even hemlock, the source of the poison that killed the famous Greek philosopher Socrates. While the carrot is probably one of the most well known, the genus Daucus actually consists of some 60 species worldwide.

When I saw Tasmania’s answer to the fleshy and succulent carrot of commerce I was pretty amused. This was a small grassland herb, the Australian Carrot (Daucus glocidiatus), which would easily be overlooked as some inconspicuous weed.

Unlike the Wild Carrot, with numerous flowers in showy umbels, the Australian Carrot has a few inconspicuous whistish-pinkish flowers borne on an irregular umbel.

I try not to pick entire plants if I can help it (pretty wimpy for a botanist I know) but I couldn’t help it when it came to this little herb. I just had to check out it’s subterranean parts to see if there was anything carrot-like about this curious little herb.

Turns out that the Australian Carrot does have a taproot but nothing that a bunny would pause at to consider. The affinity of the Australian Carrot to the carrot of commerce had to lie somewhere else.

In the field this little herb is rather easy to identify. Few other native grassland herbs have such finely dissected pinnate leaves. In particular, the small bristly fruits make it instantly recognizable.

And indeed, it is probably the fruits that betray the affinity of the Australian Carrot to the carrot of commerce. In both species the fruits are bristly. In the Australian Carrot, the bristles on the fruits are barbed, as alluded to by the specific epithet ‘glochidiatus‘, which means barbed fruit.

In European herbal lore, the seeds of the Wild Carrot is known to have contraceptive properties (see webpage). If we were to make some extrapolations and speculate, could not the seeds of the Australian Carrot also be used for similar purposes? There certainly is the potential for such medicinal research on native plants.

In my virgin days of botanizing, my eyes were glued on flowers. Flowers in the sense of trees, shrubs, twinners, lilies, irises, orchids, etc. These are beautiful, often showy, and definitely attention grabbing.

I was certainly not unique in my biasness.

On the naturalist front for example, there are many whose passions seem to revolve around particular group of flowers.

Orchids appear to be one such group. Practically every spring there will be courses or fieldtrips held in obeisance of orchids.

Then also, there is the annually held Springflower Spectacular, a public springflower show in the Hobart Town hall, where a smörgåsbord of native banksias, boronias, daisies, heaths, peaflowers, waratahs etc are displayed.

Always this ridiculous obsession with flowers!

But misunderstand me not.

The motive of this writing is not to marginalize flowers, but to exalt them.

In all the time I have been looking at plants I  have yet to find a single flower that does not personify beauty. I am merely believing that an attention only to showiness and colour is myopic.

Admit we must, that most of us have cared little to appreciate a certain group of flowers ― the grasses and their inconspicuously-flowered kin. By these I am referring to sedges (Cyperaceae), rushes (Juncaceae), cord rushes (Restionaceae), bristleworts (Centrolepidaceae), waterribbons (Juncaginaceae) and any others that fit the  the bill.

So while roses, tulips, orchids and lilies are most often the subject of poetic adoration, I have come to absolutely adore the oft-quoted phrase from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:

‘I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars.‘

The diversity of overall form in grasses and their kin is staggering.

They can grow as turfs or tussocks, as creepers or sprawlers. They can be messy or elegant. They can manifest as towering forms inspiring awe from the tallest of man (eg Cortaderia, Phragmites) or invoke adoration as minute annuals barely reaching a few centimeters (some Isolepis, Juncus etc).

But the true artistic genius of grasses and their kin lie in their flowers.

Grasses and their kin have flowers born in spikes, panicles or racemes, their spikelets displaying a bewildering configuration of shapes, sizes and orientations. When we finally get down to the actual flowers, we find that petals are simply not their style. They prefer the pragmatism of well hung stamens and plumed feathery stigmas that captures the love in the wind. Yet, unadorned as they are, their finesse is extreme, and their strategy hugely successful.

They are found from the edges of the sea to the tops of the mountains, in dryland, wetland, forest and scrub.

Where grasses occur in natural assemblages abundant enough to be the most dominant group of plants, they form grasslands. As an ecosystem, grasslands are richly diverse, supporting a wide range of invertebrates, birds and other plants. Many of Tasmania’s rare plants occur in grasslands. Such is the irony that we make annual pilgrimages to grasslands to look for orchids.

A ramble in a grassland evokes an inexplicable feeling in me. My mind conjures up a time when man has a primal connection with grassy, savanna-like environments. I can sense that the evolutionary journey of man and that of grasses and grass-like plants were always linked in some inextricable way. We eat of their substance. We weave of their resilience. As a whole, few plants groups has had as great an impact on man as grasses and their kin. I’d go as far as to say that the  form of grasses and their kin is etched into our psyche.

My journey has brought me to a point where I am thoroughly smittened with grasses and the like, just as I have become smittened with various other plant groups. I imagine this is the natural and inexorable progression of anyone who is assiduously and incessantly in search of more to appreciate. I know that until I fully expend my capacity to see and know all that I can see and know, my appreciation of this vast plant world can never be complete. And therein lies the joy of botany.

Honey must really be one of the highlights of the gastronomical adventures of a botanist!

To me, tasting a plant, or a product derived from it is another way of knowing a plant. A kind of communion.

For years I have admired the faithful blossoms of the Christmas Mintbush (sometimes simply called Christmas bush) (Prostanthera lasianthos var. lasianthos). These blossoms are without question one of the greatest attention grabbers of the wet eucalypt forest in summer. Up close, an reddish ‘heart’ pattern is evident in the throat of the corolla.

Even in it’s non-flowering seasons, the Christmas Mintbush is an attractive tree, with glossy leaves bearing toothed margins. And as may be expected of members of the mint family (Laminaceae), the Christmas Mintbush gives off the characteristic and pleasant minty smell when the leaves are crushed.

But it was only this year that I got to partake of the Christmas Mintbush’s true virtue – I bought a small 160g jar of Christmas Mintbush honey.

There is little point trying to describe the subtle nuances of taste, though I try (See post on Prickly Box Honey).

Christmas Mintbush honey. Heavenly sweet, of course. I could perhaps add that there was no minty over or undertones, which was not a bad feature. A pure flavour of floral fragrance.

Sublime?

Unquestionably.

Left to my partner and I, the small jar stood no chance of lasting the day. Winnie the Pooh would have been put to shame.