Society for Growing Australian Plants (Queensland Region) Inc. Cairns Branch PO Box 199 Earlville Qld 4870 Newsletter No. 104 Oct 2010 Society Office Bearers Chairperson Tony Roberts 40 551 292 Vice Chairperson Mary Gandini 40 542 190 Secretary David Warmington 40 443 398 Treasurer Robert Jago 40 552 266 Membership Subscriptions- Qld Region- Renewal $30.00, New Members $35, each additional member of household $2.00 Student - Renewal $20 New Members $25.00, Cairns Branch Fees - $10.00 Full Year To access our Library for the loan of publications, please contact David Warmington Newsletter Editor: Tony Roberts [email protected] Dates to remember Cairns Branch Meetings and Excursions – third Saturday of each month. NEXT MEETING AND EXCURSION 16 Oct at 1200 at The Barron Falls’ Boardwalk Tablelands Branch Excursion– Sunday following the meeting on the fourth Wednesday of the month. Any queries please contact Chris Jaminon 4095 2882 or [email protected] Townsville Branch General Meeting Please contact John Elliot: [email protected] for more information Crystal Ball October Nov – Ellie Point We will meet at the Barron Falls’ car park in Kuranda at 1200. See map below. Dec – Botanic Gardens Oct 2010 Page 1 of 10 Oct 2010 Page 2 of 10 September Excursion Report Babinda/Daintree area of Australia but can be found in the Indonesian Moluccas By Don Lawie and New Guinea. Nine of us met for lunch at the old Tony found our second orchid Highway crossing over Harvey Creek hiding on a vine above some slippery then, ignoring the threat of rain, made our rocks, but neither Pauline nor Mary, our way to the property which gives access to orchid experts, managed to fall into the the rainforest on the north bank of the creek while examining Pomatocalpa creek. This area is renowned in botanical macphersonii. This orchid was in bud. circles for the profusion of rare and They are fairly common in the area, primitive plants, a number of which occur usually in colonies that favour vines and only here and in the Daintree area. Apart skinny tree branches. This plant from those plants we were treated to an appeared to be solitary but I’m sure that a array of interesting trees, shrubs, ferns, search would find more specimens. palms and orchids all growing in We moved into the rainforest itself, profusion in this high-rainfall lowland vine remarkably clear of mosquitoes and forest on granitic soil. leeches but both Pauline & I woke up We were at the base of the mile- next day with a good dose of scrub itch; a high Bellenden Ker Range – a granite small price to pay for the wonderland that upthrust just north of Mount Bartle Frere, we visited. Rob was in his element, Queensland’s highest mountain, and naming plants, giving us fascinating facts, large emergent granite rocks were the and scrambling through the forest to find first items we noted. These had an more treasures. He came to a sudden Angkor Wat appearance, being covered halt in a little glade occupied by a graceful with large fig trees with their roots palm: “Oraniopsis appendiculata!” he said reaching into any crevice, and ferns and “what’s that doing here? “ The Oraniopsis epiphytes taking advantage of the shade or Grey Palm grows only in Australia and cover. Barbara spotted the first orchid of only in the area from here to the nearby the day, a Pencil – Dendrobium Tablelands, usually at some altitude. It is teretifolium - followed by a flowering unusual to find Grey Palms at such a low Cymbidium madidum nestling among the level, and after discussion we concluded enclosing roots of a Strangler Fig on a that the steepness of the nearby large specimen of Milky Pine (Alstonia mountain, heavy rainfall and cold air scholaris). Large Milky Pines and Golden downdraughts would have encouraged Pendas (Xanthostemon chrysanthus) their growth. dotted the cleared cow paddock (and so Orchids are rarely seen in deep did the cows!) and a pair of Pendas had a rainforest but we know that they are up flowering Barringtonia calyptrata growing there in the canopy. A fallen Johnstone between them in a very scenic display. River Hardwood tree (Backhousia We found our first Rare Plants bancroftii) presented us with some Spider growing along the bank of a small Orchids (Dendrobium tetragonum) and tributary creek : Storckiella australiensis also a large number of Tassel Ferns (White Bean) presented its pretty yellow (Huperzia phlegmaria) to delight the eye. pea-type flowers right alongside a so- The star of the show though was a called Daintree Penda (Lindsayomyrtus mature specimen with a nearby seedling recemoides), which had a flush of pale of the rare and primitive Idiospermun purple new leaves along the tree’s outer australiense, first discovered in the 19th edge. Storckiella australiensis grows century in this vicinity, lost, and found nowhere else in the world but here and again in the Daintree area. The story of the Daintree but it does have close this tree is so fascinating that I will write relatives in New Caledonia and Fiji. of it separately. Lindsayomyrtus also only grows in the Oct 2010 Page 3 of 10 Emerging from the forest we bombing in World War Two. There had followed the creek downstream and been extensive unsuccessful searches for Barbara and Mary found a patch of tiny this plant and when the floral material of terrestrial orchids Zeuxine oblonga, the re-discovered tree was properly flowering among small rocks, with a examined it proved to belong to a new fruiting Cadetia maideniana low down on family of primitive flowering plants and a small adjacent tree. was renamed Idiospermum. This discovery, along with the number of primitive flowering plants that were then We saw many other interesting plants, found in the Wet Tropics, changed the but the above may serve as an whole status of Australian rainforest. Far introduction to the plants of the Harvey from being a recent invader from the Creek area...............It may be of interest North, it showed that Australian to add that access is through a locked rainforests are ancient and contained gate. The owner has had problems with relics of the old Gondwana early flora. visitors leaving the gate open and his This provided the scientific foundation on cattle being exposed to heavy Bruce which the declaration of the Wet Tropics Highway traffic. The story goes that a World Heritage area was based” end of year or two ago one of our members quote. drove in in search of a rumoured rare plant, not knowing how to contact the The “re-discovered floral material” is a owner, who came along and locked the saga in itself: The original collection was gate behind him. Poor Anton was in deemed to be so unusual that it was not heaps of trouble. I went to school with the taken seriously in Berlin. Many years after owner, many, many years ago and he World War Two, a Nth Qld veterinarian was hospitality itself when I approached named Doug Clague was investigating him on behalf of our branch. Just goes to cattle deaths in the Daintree area. He show that the proper approach – and the determined that the deaths were a result Old School Tie – always pays dividends. of the cattle eating the poisonous fruit of a Come to think of it we didn’t have a tie, single tree. He sent plant material from nor did we wear shoes to school in those the suspect tree to the Queensland days. Herbarium, where the Government Botanist, Sel Everist made the connection ******** – it was the botanical find of the century. IDIOSPERMUM AUSTRALIENSE: In the meantime the offending tree had Family Idiospermaceae. The family been cut down and burnt and all fruit had consists of just one genus, the genus of been disposed of in a pit toilet. The Find just one species, and the plant grows only became the Tragedy of the century and in the Bartle Frere /Bellenden Ker and whether the intrepid vet recovered the Daintree areas. It is one of the “dinosaur” fruit and seed is not reported but other plants, one of the first flowering plants to trees were eventually found and so the emerge on earth. I quote from “TREAT story continues... News, Storm Season 2004”: “The original We members of Cairns Branch SGAP plants had been collected from Harvey have a closer affinity to Idiospermum : Creek near Babinda by Deils, collecting Stuart Worboys, a botanist and one of our for Von Mueller who was working in the valued members, collected what is now Botanical Gardens in Melbourne. He the Type Specimen of Idiospermum identified the insect damaged specimen australiense from the south bank of as Calicanthus australiense and took the Harvey Creek and it is kept in the only specimen with him when he returned Queensland Herbarium with Stuart’s to Germany, where it was destroyed by name recorded as the Collector. Oct 2010 Page 4 of 10 Photos by Robin Smith Angiopteris evecta Crepidomanes saxifragioides Antrophyum reticulatum Selaginella longipinna Diplazium dietrichianum Crepidomanes barnardianum Crepidomanes bipuncatum sporangia Oct 2010 Page 5 of 10 Phaleria clerodendron Hoya australis New leaves on Idiospermum australiense Tabenaemontana pandacaqui Bronwyn, Don, Mary, Pauline Barringtonia calyptrata Oct 2010 Page 6 of 10 Plant of the Month By Bob Jago Family: PIPERACEAE Piper mestonii F.M. Bailey Common Name: Meston’s Pepper; Long Pepper; Queensland Long Pepper Entomology: The species epithet is in honour of Archibald Meston co-collector with F.M. Bailey of the type specimen from Harvey Creek. Distribution: Rainforests between Harvey Creek and Innisfail from near sea level to 350 metres altitude on soils derived from meta-sediments, granites and basalts.