Number 65 September 2011 IWCS news down-under the newsletter for International Wood Collectors Society AustralAsian Region A message from our Trustee

Hi and gooday. stayed with some friends—then on to Blackall and The meeting is Isisford where we met up with Doug and Heather just around the corner but it is Malsem for a couple of days, where we collected a few definitely still not too late to different species in the area—and discovered why the register for the meeting. grey nomads head north for the winter. It seems to be Those going will enjoy a full partly to escape their winter, but also the peace and program and as Graham has indicated, new quiet lowers the stress levels, which soon disappear, registrations are coming in every week. This is a and it is much easier to relax. Then it was off to special meeting and only comes around once in Longreach, then Muttaburra—with quite a few trees to a blue moon. Could I also ask that if you are look at on the way. Then we took the Hughenden taking items for auction at the meeting then road—all gravel— but I didn’t mind—but not a tree to please email Marcia at [email protected] look at on the way until we turned off that road and with your list so that she can have the went across to Prairie, where we spotted pink gidgee opportunity to complete the list before the (Acacia crombiei), which like most species, once you get meeting. This would be greatly appreciated. to see it a couple of times, it’s not hard to spot from the road. On the home front Pam and I have recently returned from a trip to Chinchilla, where we We stopped at Prairie and took a day collecting picked up some books on the local acacias in the conkerberry (Carissa lanceolata). We knew it was there area, and to drop off some wood I had promised but to get wood with good colour and size was a a mate out there. Then we headed for Amby and challenge—and further on we came across boonaree (Alectryon oleifolius), which turned out to have good colour. Pam, with her interest in orchids spotted one Members of the International Wood Collectors of her favourites, and it had buds, so we will see what Society are devoted to advancing information on colour it will be. wood, distributing information on collecting wood, I had promised John Elliot some specimens for his correctly identifying and naming wood specimens, and using wood in a creative and sustainable way. display boards, so we dropped a couple of boxes off at the Prairie pub where he picked them up a couple of AustralAsian Region Trustee days later. This will help with his specimen boards for Brian and Pam Davis, 170 Forest Hill-Fernvale Rd, the annual Ravenshoe meeting. We spent a couple of Lynford, Q 4342 days with friends, then headed south and saw more Phone: (07) 5465 8273. E-mail: [email protected] pink gidgee—I say ‘pink’ rather than purple gidgee, because that is what the locals call it—and that’s where Newsletter editor Morris’s book with all the common and scientific Morris Lake, 22 Julia St Highgate Hill Q 4101 names comes in handy. We called in on some more Phone: (07) 3844 1246. friends and picked up some prickly acacia (Acacia E-mail: [email protected] nilotica), a declared pest, and mesquite (Prosopis Australian Membership Secretary pallida)—more pink gidgee—and started home—a Brian and Lyn Fraser, 361 Salisbury Highway, trailer can hold only so much wood you know. Parafields Gardens, SA 5107 Phone: (08) 8258 3383. Back at Amby and we spent time looking for E-mail: [email protected] Queensland ebony (Diospyros humilis) and mountain coolabah (Eucalyptus orgadophila) burls—we were only State Representatives one day from home, and we really didn’t need to camp Victoria: Doug and Heather Malsem (03) 5728 1584 in the ute, so in goes just a bit more wood. Queensland: Peter Rothkugel (07) 5546 4442 South Aust: Ron and Helen Allen (08) 8264 7414 I get the feeling that collecting wood is more fun than Tasmania: Arnold Black (03) 6227 9943 using it sometimes—anyway that’s a pretty good New South Wales: Vacant excuse to find more time for more trips. Western Australia: Charles and Lalleen Broadbent (08) 9752 2111 Good wood collecting. Brian. Trans Alpine

News from Christchurch Graham Trost The Christchurch conference is now only weeks which you can see on page 6, so that you can do away and registrations are closing on 30 September. some planning now to take best advantage of your Organising is going to plan and new registrations time over here. are coming in every week. The days are starting to To allow the auction items to be recorded warm up and it is daylight untill 6.30 pm and with accurately and quickly, it is requested that daylight saving commencing on 22 of this month members use the following table headings as a evenings during the conference will be pleasurably guide to record the description of your items. light. Please keep in mind that any ‘show and tell’ is It will also be helpful if you emailed or posted most welcome at the conference—could be your list to Marcia a couple of weeks before the anything. meeting so that she can begin to set up the system I hope that you are excited about coming to and then just add new material at the meeting. Christchurch and experiencing what we have Marcia’s email is: [email protected].. Her planned for you. Looking forward to catching up postal address is: Marcia Tommerup, 25 Fitzroy with you all. For members with time available either Street, Eagle Junction, Queensland, Australia 4011. end of the conference, I have compiled a list of Everyone supplying items for the auction should attractions/events in and around Christchurch, also bring a copy of their list—as a backup. Example from last meeting: Type Common Name Species Comments Donor wood Salmon bean Archidendron vaillantii 100 x 40 x 150 Greve artifact Huon pine earrings Logarostrobus franklinii Fraser book Mabberley “The Plant Book” superseded McLaughlin sample unknown Syzygium sp Cape Hillsborough, Q Greve

Queensland News Trustee Rep appointment for Queensland organising for IWCS to have access to suitable wood It was very pleasing to hear the announcement prunings from them in the near future. He is also at the September meeting, that Peter Rothkugal encouraging them to take up IWCS membership. has accepted the position of Trustee Peter has some good ideas for meetings and we can Representative for Queensland. Peter andAnita expect a full program of meeting for next year. The has been active members for some years and aim is to draw up a full program for next year at the they have established a beautiful rainforest on Christmas Meeting in December. their acerage at Wolfdene, in the Gold Coast Hinterland, which we visited some time ago. Christmas Meeting, 10 December Peter has recently been successful in establishing The Christmas Meeting for Queensland member a connection with the Brisbane, Mt Cootha will be held on 10 December at Brian and Pam Botanic Gardens, and it is hoped that we may be Davis’s place 170 Forest Hill, Fernvale Rd, Lynford.. 3 Update on the ‘H.E. Dadswell Memorial Wood Collection’, the CSIRO’s wood collection ex ANU and Creswick Ian McLaughlin. This is an update on the story of the Dadswell have duplicates throughout would require Collection as reported in the last couple of issues doubling the storage. In addition to the single of Down Under for those who are interested. As specimen supplied to Creswick we have made you may recall, this wood came from Creswick to additional specimens up to a maximum of three as my home near Bendigo in May 2011 in a shipping spares. We have no immediate purpose for them, container. I have voluntreered to process it, but they are offered to Creswick should they be under an agreement between myself, as a useful for sectioning as in a teaching role. member of the International Wood Collectors In producing the Creswick specimens (with up to Society (IWCS), and Professor Gerd Bossinger of three spares), and the IWCS specimens, there are the University of Melbourne. The intention of always off-cuts. These are being sent to the this move was for the IWCS to convert the wood University of Queensland, where Andrew specimens to something useful, specifically Fairbairn will find them useful in conducting authenticated specimens for the University, with experiments in his discipline of archaeology. the residue at the disposal of the IWCS. Though we are making specimens for Creswick, According to the database supplied by John the IWCS and the University of Queensland, there Dargavel and (separately) Philip Blackwell, there is still a lot of surplus wood, and this is partly why are about 2,400 pieces of wood in this I am reporting to all concerned. If you have consignment, each originally identified by a another purpose for this surplus, I would like to CSIRO number written on the block. As such, it hear from you. Otherwise, the surplus is likely to is a small part of the CSIRO’s total collection of end up as firewood. This is, after all, the ‘end-of- 30,000 to 40,000 specimens, and the listings are the-line’ for this wood. mostly in the low numbers from around 1,000 to 9,000’s, with about 100 in the 15,000’s. This dates Editor: I would like to comment that the work them back to the 1930’s when they were currently being undertaken by Ian, along with collected, so these relate to many of the fairly help from Harry Dennis and Doug Malsem, is early specimens in the CSIRO collection. possibly one of the most significant contributions As most will know the collection has been that IWCS has made to the future of wood exposed to some weathering, with a result that collections in Australia and to the future not all numbers are legible, but mostly they are. development in Australian wood technology for Many of the pieces have been cut, apparently to some decades. make specimens for other purposes. These are, after all, remnants from the original Nevertheless, I and other members of the IWCS studies of many of these Australian species, have made about 280 specimens, 236 of which carried out by Eric Dadswell, whose work was of have been delivered to Creswick. And the work international significance, and who joined IWCS continues. in August 1951 with the membership number of In the collection, there are many duplications, #196. He was the third Australian member of due to a number of specimens taken from the IWCS— only four years after the society was same tree and similarly from a number of formed in 1947. His work was representative of different trees of the same species. We have the spirit for which IWCS was formed in the first made a couple of hundred to IWCS place, and his work was respected worldwide. specifications, which is 150 X 75 X 13.5 mm, Despite our twenty first century collapse in including many duplications of the same species. further investigation of wood dendrology from a The specimens being supplied to Creswick forestry perspective—for reasons measure 120 X 60 X 10 mm, sanded on all sides, incomprehensible to most of us—these samples and are identified by the CSIRO number written will establish the foundation of a collection at the on the wood in Indian Ink, and a label recording Department of Archeology, University of the same number, the family, genus and species Queensland—which is pioneering technology for of the specimen. The label carries the heading identifying wood residues in archeological digs ‘H.E.Dadswell Memorial Wood Collection’, a and geological investigations throughout the name suggested by Jugo Ilic. world—they approached us for help in this The aim is to have one of every species, identified regard. This is very much in the spirit of what by the modern name, with details of synonyms, Dadswell did for the forest industry. etc. A small number (24) of species have been I commend Ian and his helpers for this important duplicated, by mistake. There is no harm in this, contribution to the future of dendrology. as there is usually variability in a species, but to 4 Queensland members meet at Sandy Creek, Kilcoy by Morris Lake.

On Saturday, 10 September, 15 south protected wildlife site and there Queensland members attended what are no grazing stock on the was possibly one of the most property, and has never been enjoyable and friendly field meetings heavily logged. we have had for quite some time. We All the way up the creek were met up at Yowie Park, Kilcoy just red cedars (Toona ciliata) bursting before 10 am and set off north east out in their new spring growth of into the coastal ranges backing on to red leaves. There are few the Blackall Ranges. These ranges deciduous hardwoods in the run mostly north south, and as we Australian forests, and in spring progressed up Mary Smokes Rd we the red cedars stand out, and are soon arrived at Jim Walker’s property easily identified. They were nestled between two north-south everywhere, and it was so granite ridges with Sandy Creek, the exhilarating to see that this is an main focus with its babbling crystal area where greed has not ‘won clear water flowing smoothly over out’ over nature. This was just granite rocks and boulders. The 1,200 such a very rare sight to see. ha property has been in Jim Walker, and his late brothers possession since We left our vehicles at the lunch Brian Davis with Jim and site area and set off in four, 4 the 1960s. We also had the company Sharon Walker. of Jim’s niece Sharon Walker, and wheel drives, to view the twin Greg Smyrell, a botanist friend who has red bean trees (Dysoxylum accompanied us before—and is now a member. mollissimam)—which we had been drooling about— Welcome to IWCS Greg. and were not disappointed to see. But first, there were numerous other very good specimens to see on On arrival it was rather breathtaking because the the way. These included; brush box (Lophostemon trees in this valley, particularly on Jim’s place confertus), river she oaks (Casuarina cunninghamiana) cover a wide variety of valuable rainforest species the tallest of the casurina species, with many growing on the alluvial creek flats and wet upwards of 25 m and again with very straight and schlorephyll species on the adjacent slopes. Many large dimension trunks—the largest I have seen. of the trees are mature specimens which, being in Then we walked across a flat alluvial plane in the such a sheltered location, and having not been loop of the stream which was thickly forested with over-exploited has not suffered crown removal flooded, or rose, gum (Eucalyptus grandis) with dead and damage from storms. The property is a straight stems reaching for the sky. Not one appeared to have been damaged by violent winds, as is so often seen on exposed sites, where once the mature trees extend above the canopy, their tops are twisted and ripped out in violent storms.

Keith Hall admiring the beauty of his favourite eucalypt, the rose gum (Eucalyptus grandis). You could almost put a straith-edge on these trunks with not a gap showing. Below, the group enjoys the BBQ lunch under a considerable sized red cedar (Toona ciliata), which having losts its leaves, left us in the warrmth of the spring sun. 5

After returning for a hearty BBQ lunch on a beautifully cared for area beside the creek, we ventured up the western side of the creek towards Walker waterfall . On the way we were able to compare the rose gum which has a short sock on the base of the stump while the grey gum (Eucalyptus propinqua) has no sock, and a slightly mottled bark on the trunk. There were also some blue gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis) in the area. Further up on the ridge were mountain or rose she oak (Allocasuarina torulosa), not as big as those further south in northern New South Wales, but reasonably prolific. Back into the gorge area near the waterfall were engraver wood (Pittosporum undulatum), white beech (Gmilina leichhardtii), brush caper berry (Capparis arborea) in various stages of its growth, and hairy rosewood Members admire the 20 m ‘twin’ red bean (Dysoxylum rufum). trees (Dysoxylum mollissimam) growing The Walker waterfall afforded a alongside several black bean trees spectacular backdrop as the late afternoon (Castanospermum australe). The sun sparkled on the babbling water, trunk of the largest of the red beans before we made our way back to the was considerably flanged. The oblique picnic spot where we held the wood leaflets of the compound leaf are auction. shown on the right. Note the tops of It must have been a good experience, the leaf blades extend further up the because, before we all left for home— leaf petiole. The photo on the right almost at nightfall—there was a shows blood-red sawdust streaming unanimous decision that we give this from the chainsaw as Jim cuts into a location a further visit next year. But this miva mahogany log—yes, a couple of time the plan lucky members scored a magnificent is to make it crutch bowl blank—eat ya heart out.. a Saturday/ Sunday Then into an area with blush camping cudgerie (Euroschinus falcata) in weekend, so profusion, yellow walnut that more of (Beilschmiedia bancroftii) in flower, its natural giant water gum (Syzygium francisii), bollywood beauty can be taken (Neolitsea dealbata), and a solitary ancient specimen in and experienced. of brown pine (Podocarpus elatus) . I say ay to that. The mature 20 m, twin red bean trees (Dysoxylum What are friends for, mollissimam) were growing in close association with if not to share such several black beans (Castanospermum australe), which pristine beauty have very different trunks, but very similar together. compound leaves—so similar in fact, that it is almost impossible to separate them unless you can find some leaves close to the ground, as they require closer examination of the leaflet blades. Those of the red bean are oblique, which refers to the two sides of the leaf base meeting the midrib at different points, making the two sides of different lengths, and therefore one side is considerably River she oaks ‘fatter’ than the other. The black bean has identical (Casuarina sides to the leaf. This was pointed out to us by cunninghamiana) Greg. To the left of this group was a lone brown the tallest of the pine (Podocarpus elatus). casurina species Things to do—Pre and Post the Christchurch Conference

Hagley Park

If you are looking for activities to do or something • On Time – clocks, watches etc (just a longish walk to see in or around Christchurch either side of the from Top10 Holiday Park) – free. conference, there is something for everyone: • Air Force – www.airforce.museum.co.nz - free. • New Zealand Cup Week prior to conference. • Private Movie Mueseum (a friend of mine) – if you • A & P Show – Wednesday, Thursday and are a film buff and are interested in seeing hundreds Friday the week before. of movie cameras and his theatrette etc I could arrange it. Like walking? • Ashburton Aircraft Museum (one hour out of • Peace Walk (good value and not too long). Christchurch) – DC10 flights available. • The Bridle Walk (original settlers crossed over the to the Canterbury Plains. Wildlife and Culture • The Port Hills have numerous walks, or, for the • Willowbank – www.willowbank.co.nz - see a kiwi more energetic who run. (location not far from Top10 Holiday Park). • Crater rim. • Orana Wildlife Park – www.orana.wildlifepark.co.nz • Victoria Park spur. • South Canterbury Rose Society Spring Rose Show” – • Sign of the Kiwi, Coronation Reserve. Timaru Festival 23 – 27 November. • There are two rail trails from Christchurch to Little River. • Hagley Park. Excitement • Spencer Park. • Adrenalin Forest on a High Wire – • Travis Wetlands – Native Heritage Park. www.adrenalin-forest.co.nz. • McLeans Forest. • the Blue Edge. Winery • the Estuary. • Melton Estate – www.meltonestate.co.nz Like sitting? High Country Tours • Orbiter bus, minimal cost or free with Super • Canterbury Trails – www.canterburytrails.co.nz Gold Card – between 9 am and 3 pm. • Terrace Downs – www.terracedowns.co.nz • Sightseeing bus (some double deckers) – cost • Canterbury Plains and High Country – 0800 76 6928 involved. • helicopter rides over Christchurch. (approximately $160 Power Point). • An hour’s drive from Christchurch – originally a • hot air ballooning – www.ballooning.co.nz, or French settlement and the architectural influence is www.nzballooning.com. still present. A pleasant place to visit with tourist • Tranzalpine train trip (full day) – shopping – www.Akaroa.com. www.tranzscenic.co.nz. • Track – www.bankstrack.co.nz • punting on the Avon River – • Dolphin and Harbour cruise – www.welcomeaboard.co.nz. www.akaroadolphins.co.nz. • jet boating – www.jetthrills.com. • Pohatu Penguins (24 hour package) – • canoeing on the Avon River. www.pohatu.co.nz. • skydiving (1 hour 45 mins out of Christchurch) – • Canterbury Cat (a large catamaran takes you out [email protected]. beyond the heads to view the rare Hector dolphins) • drive a 52 ton tank – • Akaroa Museum incorporates the Court House, www.tanksforeverything.co.nz. Customs House, etc. • guided tours of Christchurch city (parts of it) • Motukarara Conservation Nursery and Reserve • gondola ride up onto the Port Hills to look over centre in on the highway to Akaroa – Christchurch and Canterbury Plains. www.doc.govt.nz/conservationnursery. • MV Tuhoe sails out of . • Little River – a nice place to stop for a cuppa and • DC 10 flies over Christchurch. visit the art gallery.

Museums For the really dedicated wood collectors – these • Canterbury Museum (established and well businesses are not on the conference programme: appointed) – free. • The Pump House – for recycled timbers. • Yaldhurst Museum – celebrating transport and • Native Timber Solutions, 29 Mowbray Street, technology. Christchurch – for recycled timbers (better known as • Ferrymead Historic Park – every aspect of the Southern Demolition). history of New Zealand and Canterbury in particular – approx $14.

Lyttelton