Introduction

For a time I had the privilege of caring for these trees and this land
I planted almost all the trees in the nearer area, other than those on the roadside

Xanthorrhoea, a very atypical tree A 'grass tree', also known as a yacka (or yakka or yacca); botanical name Xanthorrhoea; they are endemic to Australia and are considered iconic. My beloved wife Denece noticed the view and suggested I took a photo of it. It was taken on one of the many times that we have climbed St Mary's Peak in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia and is one of my favourite photos. Xanthorrhoea are very slow growing, typically the trunk will grow at something like one or two centimetre a year, but I've recorded growth in the seed head of 9 centimetres per day. Home Top Index More photos of grass trees (aka yaccas or yackas or yakkas) are here, here, here, here, here, here and especially here on these pages. Gum trees, the quintessential Australian tree It would be remiss of me if I passed through the Introduction of this page without mentioning that most iconic of all Australian trees, the gum tree. The gum trees, or Eucalypts, include seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australia: Eucalyptus, Corymbia, Angophora, Stockwellia, Allosyncarpia, Eucalyptopsis and Arillastrum. Karri trees (Eucalyptus diversicolor) in Shannon National Park, southwest Western Australia. Trees in Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia Lemon scented gums (Eucalyptus citriodora) on Fraser Avenue, the main road that goes up to Kings Park Botanic Garden and visitor's centre. This is a magnificent specimen of an Australian red cedar (Toona ciliate). Kings Park again - Swan estuary in the background. Trees, or limbs that have a mind of their own: Standing out from the crowd This one limb of (I think) a lemon-scented gum (Corymbia citriodora) in Kings Park decided it wanted to go any direction but upward. It didn't want to do the normal, accepted, standard, ordinary, thing. Home Top Index I can identify with that. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, standard lens, 2024/01/18 While the photo above recorded a limb that wanted to do its own thing, here, in the grounds of the University of Western Australia, is a whole tree with a mind of its own. Again, I think it's a lemon scented gum. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, standard lens, 2024/01/03 Mandurah This tree-hugger is one of the Mandurah Giants. This one's name is Jyttes Hytte. There are four others scattered around Mandurah and one in Subiaco, Perth. Several of the Giants have some association with trees (apart, of course, from the fact that all are made of wood). The other with a close association is the one in Marlee Reserve, 'Little Lue'; it is resting against the roots of a fallen tree. The 'big seasonal paperbark swamp' (BSPS), Mandurah   Photo iPhone 11 pro, 6mm telephoto lens, 2022/12/30. A section of the northern end of the BSPS in the early morning. The early morning has always been my favourite time, especially so in summer when temperatures become uncomfortable later in the day. I believe that most of the Eucalypts in the BSPS are marri (Corymbia calophilla), jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) or tuart (Eucalyptus gomphocephala). I'm not good at telling one from another of these without seeing the seed capsule (the marri capsule is very large - nick-named honkey nuts - the jarrah and tuart capsules are much smaller). More experienced people can tell by the bark - see below. Tuart (Eucalyptus gomphocephala) is another large similar looking Eucalypt that grows in the area. As noted in WA's Giant Trees tuart bark "is usually a light grey to nearly bone white in direct sunlight, to darker grey or brown in shaded conditions. The bark is rough, scaly and flaky, with irregular but attractive patterns."

Roley Bushcare has a page on identifying 'Marri versus Jarrah', the above image was taken from that page.

Xanthorrhoeas in the big seasonal paperbark swamp (BSPS)   Photo iPhone 11 pro, 6mm telephoto lens, early morning 2022/12/30. Some of the Xanthorrhoeas (grass trees, yakkas) in the northern end of the BSPS. Home Top Index A number of the smaller Xanthorrhoeas have been run over and seriously damaged by the council mower. I offered to mark the small Xanthorrhoeas with pegs to try to avoid similar accidents in the future, but received no answer from Council. I marked them anyway.   Photo iPhone 11 pro, 1.54mm wide angle lens, early morning 2022/12/30. One of the more interestingly formed trees within the lower lying part of the BSPS. Curiously there is very little middle story undergrowth in the BSPS while the part of the Len Howard Conservation Park that is close to the Peel lagoon is densely covered with undergrowth, to the point where much of it is difficult to walk through. In the BSPS there are grasses and low groundcovers, some rushes in places and there are the trees; very few shrubs. There are some grass trees (Xanthorrhoeas) and Zamia palms (Macrozamia riedlei) in the more open areas. The paperbark trees (probably swamp paperbark, Melaleuca rhaphiophylla) in the part of the swamp that is seasonally flooded - against the light of the early morning sun. Photo iPhone 11 pro, 4.25mm standard lens, early morning 2023/01/02. A particularly big paperbark tree in the 'big seasonal paperbark swamp' (see Google Earth image, elsewhere). It is probably a swamp paperbark, Melaleuca rhaphiophylla, but possibly a saltwater paperbark, Melaleuca cuticularis. Home Top Index Photo 2022/04/27, iPhone 11 Pro, wide angle camera

The BSPS with water in it. The duckweed can entirely cover the water by the end of the wet season. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, focal length 6mm (telephoto), 2022/07/24

Mandurah Quay area, Peel Estuary

East side of main channel, Soldiers Cove, Mandurah A view of the main Peel estuary channel from the eastern side. The trees are Casuarinas, possibly C. obesa. There is a path along the channel for rather over half the distance between the two bridges. Home Top Index Photo iPhone 11 Pro, telephoto lens, 6mm focal length, 2022/08/11 Stingray Point fig tree, Mandurah

The Mandurah foreshore area would not be the same without this magnificent Morton Bay fig tree (Ficus macrophylla). The photo above, iPhone 11 Pro, standard camera, 4.25mm focal length.

This tree is listed as number 1 in the Mandurah City Council's list of significant trees. I captured these two images while on one of my early Sunday morning bicycle rides. Home Top Index Morton Bay fig trees can be magnificent, as this one is. The early morning sunlight on the trunk made this one particularly striking. This tree was very sick for a time. Cormorants had taken to roosting in its branches in great numbers. I have not been able to find out exactly what made the tree sick, but I would suspect it would have either been the birds droppings onto the leaves or the excessive build-up of nutrients in the soil beneath the tree. One still sees some cormorants in the tree, but not the great numbers of some years ago. Wikipedia gives the year it was planted as 1899, while an article on the history of the Peninsula Hotel (which was once adjacent to the tree) give the year as 'around 1930'. Photo iPhone 11 Pro, telephoto camera, 6mm focal length. The Flinders Ranges, South Australia Other photos of the Flinders Ranges can be seen here, here and especially here.

The Spirit of Endurance
The Cazneaux Tree, famous for a photo by Harrold Cazneaux, taken 1953/06/19, Art Gallery of NSW.

This photo was taken from a slightly different direction to that of Cazneaux's photo but both show a part of Wilpena Pound in the background. Remarkably, the tree seems to have changed little in the 61 years between the two images, other than growing more small branches near the base. Gum trees usually only produce shoots from the trunk at times of severe stress. This photo was taken 2014/05/27. This would be a River Redgum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis). River reds are common along water courses in the Flinders Ranges and similar environments through South Australia.

Early sunlight on gum trees at wilpena, a case of being in the right place at the right time. The original of this photo was on film, probably about 2005.

Callitris, common name native cypress pine Callitris trees (probably C. columellaris, common but somewhat misleading name, native cyprus-pine), are one of the defining features of the southern and central Flinders Ranges. Even more than with the magnificent Eucalyptus camaldulensis trees (common name river red-gum) the place would not be the same without them. Home Top Index They can cling to rock walls, as this one is, they can be sparsely scattered over flat or sloping land, they can grow near water courses, or they be crowded together anywhere. Where they are crowded together they are especially susceptible to drought. This photo was taken 2007/07/23. As of March 2020 the Callitris trees were suffering greatly from the drought that any reasonable person would have to at least partly ascribe to the effects of climate change.   We visited Willow Springs again in March 2020, just before the COVID shutdown. The vegetation, Euclypts and Callitris, at the time was in poor condition due to drought. Callitris (and Allocasuarina) trees, in my experience, are very palatable to sheep and kangaroos. In an area where there are hungry sheep or kangaroos the Callitris foliage will normally be eaten off in the sections that the animals can reach. I was puzzled that this browsing had not taken place in the vicinity of Willow Springs at the time of our visit. Clare Valley of South Australia The next two photos, taken by one of my drones, give a hint of how important Eucalyptus trees are in the Australian environment. The great majority of the trees in the two photos are Eucalypts.

Home Top Index Looking north from above the big cutting on the Clare-Blyth road on a morning with a ground-hugging mist. Emu Rock is at the far end of the ridge that rises above the mist on the right.

Looking northeast from the same point as the above image, Hicks Road is on the far side of the cleared paddock on the right. Armagh would be beneath the mist beyond that.

Jacobs Range Road, Armagh is west of Clare township, From this section of Jacobs Range Road, near the southern end, you get views over the Blyth Plain. Photo 2021/06/29, Apple iPhone 7, panorama

For the first 26 years that my wife and I have lived in the Clare 'Valley' Jacobs Range Road was just a narrow bush track. Sometime before this photo was taken it was widened and that has made it less picturesque, but it still has its attractive spots. Home Top Index Photo 2021/06/29, Apple iPhone Climate change hits the Clare Valley Climate change is impacting the Clare Valley as it is most places in the world. The trees with the dead leaves in this photo are Red Stringybarks (Eucalyptus macrorhyncha). There are a few pockets of this species in the higher altitude and damper gullies of the Clare Valley. They are not endemic anywhere else in South Australia, but do occur in the eastern states. I've written on another page about the poor condition of the vegetation due to drought at Willow Springs Resort in early 2020 in South Australia's Flinders Ranges. Climate change hits the SW of Western Australia Dead and dying trees   Recently dead trees Photo 2024/05/11, iPhone 11 Pro, standard camera The trees in the photo on the right and many other trees in the SW of WA have died following an exceptionally long, hot, dry summer. Home Top Index The SW of Western Australia has had a drying climate for many years and it seems to be getting worse. Also see Dead trees in the Peel estuary on this site and The big dry: forests and shrublands are dying in parched Western Australia on the University of WA site. You can report dead or dying trees in this citizen science project: The Dead Tree Detective, Western Sydney University. Serious action on reducing emissions is desperately needed, but we are not seeing it. CSIRO: Australia's changing climate; a quote... "The drying trend is particularly strong between May to July over southwest Western Australia, with rainfall since 1970 around 20 per cent less than the average from 1900 to 1969. Since 1999, this reduction has increased to around 26 per cent." (I have expanded on the climate change problem, particularly as it impacts WA, on another page on this site.) Japan This tree was in Kanazawa Castle Park. Sometimes, as in this case, it seemed to me that the propping of trees went too far to be aesthetically pleasing. But perhaps it was done for other than aesthetic reasons? This was in the Kenrokumachi area, to the east of Castle Park. Photo taken 2017/10/26 Ginkgo tree and cobwebs I'm an early riser. On my first morning in Japan I went for a walk in the grounds around the hotel we stayed in overnight. I knew that ginkgo trees were popular in Japan and was pleased to see this one on my first morning. Home Top Index One of the hotel garden beds was covered with cobwebs, all loaded with dew, making them conspicuous. Another image shows one of the many spiders in the same area on the same morning. (Like most spiders, these were unaggressive and probably almost harmless. In general a spider has nothing to gain in biting a human.) We only stayed in Narita for the night; we caught a morning train into Tokyo where we met the rest of our family. Yarra Ranges, Victoria

These magnificent trees (mountain ash, Eucalyptus regnans) and tree ferns (probably Cyathea species or Dicksonia antarctica) were in the mountains south of Marysville and north of Healesville. The Yarra Ranges, and the adjacent Baw Baw Ranges to the east, are parts of the Great Dividing Range.

In the same area as the above photo; looking straight up. Photo 2019/04/11 Another beautiful area of tall trees is the SW of Western Australia. Tree ferns in the Yarra Ranges A tiny piece of the forrest of the Yarra Ranges about half way between Healesville and Marysville. Tree ferns like shaded places beneath taler trees, they can't handle the bright sunlight and heat of the open in Australia. They also need far more moist environments than are common in Australia. The tall gum trees in the image could be mountain ash (Eucalyptus regnans). Photo iPhone 7, 2019/04/11, Yarra Ranges National Park, Fernshaw. Marysville, in the Yarra Ranges area

On our way from Eildon to the Latrobe Valley we took a short detour to Marysville to see the autumn foliage, which we had read is outstanding if you get there at the right time of year. As it happened, we were probably a little early for the autumn foliage, but serendipitously, while we had a coffee break we happened to notice a sign to Bruno's Sculpture Garden. Photo 2019/04/11

Home Top Index A view over the forested mountains just east of Mount Hotham. The forest is showing the after-effects of being burned, the silvery dead branches sticking up above the living parts of the forest. Photo 2019/04/18 This photo is taken from a page on a tour of a part of Victoria, including the Great Alpine Road and Hotham Heights. How many thousand or million trees were burned in this fire? How many more intense and more frequent fires will 'our' Australian trees have to contend with in the future with climate change? The King Valley, Great Dividing Range, Victoria

My wife, Denece, admiring the view over the King Valley. There is still big areas of forrest in the Great Dividing Range of Victoria and New South Wales, but how much of it is regrowth rather that untouched old growth is questionable. Home Top Index There are two view-points at Power's Lookout; the first is right at the car park, the second is a few hundred metres away and requires climbing quite a few steps. The second lookout provides by far the better views. Photo 2019/04/20

Ouyen's mallee stump Ouyen's clame to fame? This is believed to be the biggest known mallee stump in the world; there was a competition. (There are many species of mallee, Eucalyptus dumosa in this case.) It is certainly far, far bigger than any I had ever seen before. Mallee trees were cleared in their millions from what was to become farming land. The stumps made excellent firewood. Photo 2019/04/03

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