The Wild Wet Season

The wild wet season The green season, as the wet season has been dubbed, is a time of magnificent skyscapes, dramatic torrential rain and vigorous rushing rivers. It is also a ime of celebration as summer rain, the life force of the tropics, revitalises plants and The regions animals which have been suffering from the stress of a prolonged dry season. glorious high rainforest draped mountains recieve 2010 was the wettest year for cyclones reach the east coast, while in signficiant rain from the effect called Queensland since records were first kept other years we may receive rain from occult precipitation (cloud stripping). in 1887 (and Australia’s fourth wettest three or four. In El Niño years, the Up to 31% of annual rain occurs this recorded year). south-easterly trade winds tend to way. That is why we enjoy the lovely break down. continually flowing creeks we love to The average annual rainfall is 1992mm swim in around the region. Oh what on an average 154 days. The majority Essentially, rain patterns in the wet a life! of the region’s rainfall occurs during tropics are variable. Older residents summer between January and March. talk about the wet seasons of the past, The mean annual rainfall ranges from but they are remembering years when about 1,200 to over 8000 millimeters Summer rain in the wet tropics comes rainfall, for a number of reasons, was (nix 1991). Even in the wettest areas from a convergence of weather patterns. above average. There really is no between Tully and Cairns there is The monsoon trough is a long band typical wet season. Australia as a a distinctly seasonal precipitation of activity formed where the south- whole is subject to long, irregular regime with over 60 per cent falling east trade winds (blowing towards the climate patterns and the wet tropics is in the summer months (December to north-west) meet equatorial westerlies no exception. By the end of the wet March) followed by a relatively dry (blowing towards the south-east). season, our dams could well be full season in mid-year. and overflowing again. The collision of these two warm, wet, Tropical low presssure cells and rising air streams results in heavy rain cyclones that develop in the associated with thunderstorms and monsoonal trough commonly occasional tropical cyclones, which form produce more than 250 millimeters of over the ocean. The monsoon trough rain in a day during the wet season. sometimes shows up on satellite images Mt Bellenden Ker has recorded 1,140 as a solid line of cloud but at other times millimeters of rain and 24-hour is scattered and ill-defined. In some period and in 2000 recievevd over years, the monsoon trough does not 12m of rain. go far south of Cooktown. In other years it reaches southern Queensland The combination of extreme rainfall and even New South Wales. over an extended period of time and many intense cyclones during the Winter rain comes from south-easterly same period created unseasonally winds dropping their moisture as they flooded conditions in the whole of rise up over the mountains of the Great the east coast of Australia, seriously Dividing Range. The annual rainfall total affecting many people from Sydney to varies, of course, from one year to the Cape York. next. Sometimes the monsoon trough is more or less active than usual. Many wet weary locals questioned Cyclones, which usually bring a large Queensland calling itself the amount of rain in a short period, can “sunshine state”. greatly affect the total; some years no It’s all in the name Cooper’s wood, humbug, leather jacket, red almond, red ash, red tweedie, mountain ash, sarsparilla, soapbush, soapwood and foam bark. These are the common names for not several plants but just one, the rainforest pioneer tree Alphitonia excelsa. At least half of these names are also used for the other four species of Alphitonia found in north Queensland. So, as we see here, not only are several combine both the first and second common names often used for the name as in Lenbrassia, which same plant but sometimes the same was named after Len Brass, a common name can refer to several Toowoomba-born botanist noted ifferent plants. This can lead to great for his work in many tropical parts confusion. The use of scientific names can of the world. help avoid this. Names describing features of a The application of scientific names to plants plant usually have Latin or Greek is governed by an internationally accepted set roots. Xanthostemon chrysanthus, of rules, the International Code of Botanical golden penda, the attractive yellow-flowered tree and floral Nomenclature. Under this system one plant species emblem of Cairns, gets its name from the Greek xantho- meaning can have no more than one ‘yellow’ and -stemon, ‘stamen’, the male parts of name and no two plant species People are sometimes reluctant the flower. Chrysanthus is another Greek word can share the same name. The to use scientific names but meaning ‘golden-flowered’. Eucalyptus grandis, naming system we use today may do so unawares. Did you the flooded gum or rose gum, gets its species was popularised by the Swedish know that Chrysanthemum is a name from the Latin adjective grandis which botanist Carl Linnaeus and dates scientific name? means ‘large, great, big, tall or lofty’, all perfect from 1753. A scientific name descriptions of this gum tree. consists of two parts and is referred to as a binomial. The first part, the genus, Sometimes a name indicates the country of origin, for example, is written with an initial capital letter. The second australiensis meaning ‘from Australia’ (not to be confused with part is the species name (or specific epithet) and australis, which means ‘southern’) and novoguinensis, ‘from New is written entirely in Guinea’. Notice these all end in lower case. You can -ensis, the Latin suffix indicating a think of the genus as There are no rules for how plant names are formed but country or place of origin. a noun and the species as an adjective, they generally adhere to the rules of common sense and describing the noun. For example, public acceptability. They can be drawn from allmanner The name could also indicate there are black cows and there are of sources but, regardless of their origin, the names something about the place where brown cows. Similarly you can have are treated as Latin. Hence, grammatically, they have the plant is commonly found. For gender, number and case. This explains why theendings black horses or brown horses. Cows example, in monticola the Latin of specific names can differ slightly between genera. For and horses can be likened to the genus ending -cola means ‘dweller’, so example, angustifolia means narrowleaved but we have plants with this species name and the colour to the species. Callicarpa angustifolia, Stenocarpus angustifolius and Canthium angustifolium because Callicarpa is feminine, are mountain dwellers, from the A plant can be named after the person Stenocarpus is masculine and Canthium is neuter. Latin mons, ‘a mountain’. Another who discovered it, a noteworthy way of indicating habitat is to person, a patron, friend, lover, wife, use the ending –arius, indicating husband or partner. These names end in -ii if the person is a man a connection. For example arenarius means ‘pertaining to sand’ or -iae if the person is a woman, although the initial i is sometimes (arena); Xanthostemon arenarius is a tree (with yellow stamens) dropped for various reasons. Miliusa traceyi, a tree from several from the sand dunes at Cape Flattery. rainforest types on Cape York Peninsula, is named after the botanist Geoff Tracey. Argophyllum verae is An existing name may be modified. This is named after the botanical illustrator, Vera commonly used for generic names where a Scarth Johnson. The species name can prefix such as neo-, ‘new’, or pseudo-, ‘false’, commemorate more than one person. is added to an existing name, hence Neolitsea In this case, the name will end in from Litsea and Pseudopogonatherum -iorum or -iarum although, again, the fromogonatherum. Alternatively a suffix can be ii is sometimes omitted. Cupaniopsis used, for example, -astrum added to Malva to cooperorum is named after artist form Malvastrum indicating ‘an incomplete likeness’. and authors Bill and Wendy Cooper. When inter-generic crosses have been created, names may be People can also be commemorated compounded. This commonly happens with orchids. For example, in generic names. For example, when Epidendrum was crossed with Cattleya the offspring became Banksia is named after Sir Joseph Epicattleya. Sometimes anagrams are formed by rearranging the Banks. Gossia, a recently described letters of an existing name. Hence the name Romnalda, a grass-like genus related to Austromyrtus, is plant from Mount Lewis, was coined by rearranging the letters of named after former Queensland Lomandra, a plant which looks quite similar. premier, Wayne Goss. The genus can Acknowledgements to John Clarkson, QPWS Tropical Topics updated 2011 Creature feature: Blind snakes Facts and stats Blind snakes (Ramphotyphlops spp) are Studies of the feeding habits of blind on Orchids small, worm-like, non-venomous snakes snakes indicate that they follow The word ‘orchid’ with small eyes which feed mainly on the scent trails of ants which live in comes from the Greek ants and termites. There are about 30 colonies. These ants leave pheromone word ‘orchis’ which species in various parts of Australia and markers as a guide for other individuals means testicle, a perhaps eight in the wet tropics. The in the group. Blind snakes were reference to the larger species of blind snakes can grow observed placing their snouts on the paired tubers to 40cm in length.

Load more