Here are a few scenes from recent walks on country–not ours, the Boandik people’s, which we are holding in stewardship for the time being.
This first group is from a grove (what is the Australian equivalent–mob?–probably) of Casuarinas, or Sheoaks–old trees whose lineage goes back to the early evolutionary times. They are diecious–which means that there are male trees and female trees, with wind-blown pollen–it seems very inefficient but it must have worked because they have been on the planet a lot longer than a great many other plants.
At this time of year the male trees are pollinating hopefully, which accounts for the yellow tinge you can see here. The dark green trees are the female trees, hanging around waiting for something to happen. Today it’s calm so probably nothing exciting on at the moment.
The kangaroos like the seedlings so it’s quite hard to get them to grow–you have to protect them–but here in the wild the young trees are doing very well together. Maybe clustering together like this gives them some kind of protection.
If you click on a photo and run the slide show the details will show up better.
A couple of days a front came through, with the rain drifting across. Dylan Thomas wrote somewhere (I think “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”) of the rain “shawling down”, a lovely and evocative phrase, and just right here.
One doesn’t really want to be anywhere else.
Nice shots. The vegetation looks pretty healthy.
I have often thought it would be interesting to make a flute from casuarina wood, because of the way the trees ‘sing’ in a breeze.
That fence is holding up – must be solid workmanship….