Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Regeneration II: Life goes on


Under normal conditions, many Eucalypt trees shed thier bark seasonally, not thier leaves. I think this one is shedding its singed exterior rather artfully.


The curious, wooly appearance of most Eucalypt trees during regeneration. All along the length of the seemingly dead tree, new shoots appear. Some will go on to become the trees new branches. The regenerating tree looks like a column of green in the sea of naked sun bleached timber.


Sweet scented flowers of some abundant wild shrub. No doubt they are loving the extra sun they get with the canopy being temporarily thinner. No bees, no butterflys, just lots of young locust, and the ever present blow-fly.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, I love the picture of the gum shedding the burned bark. You just reminded me of Portugal with the picture of the fresh gum tree shoots. I recall now that they look quite different from adult gum tree leaves. In Portugal they plang Eucalyptus globulus a lot because it grows so quickly and they can make paper from its wood (just sad that they deforest all the old grown cork oak forests for this). And I remember that they cut the gum trees down to the roots three times too harvest the wood (until the soil is exhausted and nothing else grows anymore) and I remember the freshly cut gum fields with the silvery and round young tree foliage, that looked so much different from adult Eucalyptus, just like another species.
The lower picture is beautiful, all the white little flowers, you found out what it is already???

Lavender said...

Areeiro Thank you! Yes, you are right, they have a juvenile leaf phase, which I dont know if other trees do - terribly interesting plant group!
Im surprised to hear that you can see Eucalypts in Portugal, I never imagined them there LOL!
I can well imagine the cleared gum lot you describe, Ive seen such sights myself, they give rise to all the same feelings these bush fire areas do, well for me anyway!
No, Ive no idea what the flowering shrub is, and I dislike knowing! This is my main complaint about having migrated away from my homeland, there I knew EVERYTHING that grew (well, in my region anyway lol) Ive learned alot of new plants since coming here, but it will be a long while longer before I know enough to satisfy myself ;)
Cheers, Mate!