1 Contents Part 1: A History of the Stanwell Avenue Reserve 1.1 A Short Early History of Stanwell Park The British Colony and Aboriginal Dispossession in the Illawarra The Frontier Wars The Appin Massacre The First Land Grants in the Illawarra The Official Dispossession of the Aboriginal People from Stanwell Park: Matthew Gibbons Major Thomas Mitchell 1.2 An Ecological History of the Dress Circle: The Littoral Rainforest Aboriginal Patch Burning of the Land The Classification of the Forest in the Stanwell Avenue Reserve Species Map Naturally Regenerated Species Planted Species Addition of Native Trees Endemic to Stanwell Park and which had Regenerated in the Reserve Addition of Native Trees Endemic to Stanwell Park, but Not Found in the Reserve Addition of Illawarra Native Trees Not Endemic to Stanwell Park Addition of Native Trees Not Endemic to the Illawarra, but Endemic to Other Parts of NSW Addition of Native Trees Endemic to Queensland Part 2: The Naturally Regenerated Species in the Reserve Native Forest Type: Acacia: Acacia longifolia (Coastal Wattle); Acacia maidenii (Maiden's Wattle); Acacia binervata (Two Veined Hickory) Native Forest Type: Eucalyptus: Eucalyptus pilularis (Blackbutt); Eucalyptus Robusta (Swamp Mahogany); Eucalyptus paniculata (Grey Ironbark) Native Forest Type: Rainforest: Acmena smithii (Lilly Pilly); Acronychia oblongifolia (White Aspen); Alphitonia excelsa (Red Ash); Androcalva fraseri (Brown Kurrajong); Backhousia (formerly Choricarpia) leptopetala (Brush Turpentine); Breynia oblongifolia (Breynia); Claoxylon australe (Brittleweed); Clerodendron tomentosum (Native Clerodendron); Cryptocarya microneural (Murrogun); Cupaniopsis anarcardioides (Tuckeroo) ;Cyathea australis (Rough Tree Fern); Diosporos australis (Black Plum) ; Elaeodendron australe (Red Fruited Olive Plum); Glochidion ferdinandi (Cheese Tree); Grevillea robusta (Silky Oak); Ficus Coronata (Sandpaper Fig); Ficus rubiginosa (Port Jackson Fig); Guioa semiglauca (Guoia or Wild quince); Homalanthus populifolius (Native Bleeding Heart); Livistona australis (Cabbage Tree Palm); Polyscias elegans (Celery Wood); Melia azedarach (White Cedar); Myoproum acuminatum (Boobialla); Myrsine variabilis (Brush Mutton Wood); Myrsine howitteana (Mutton Wood); Notelaea longifolia (Large Mock Olive); Notelaea venosa (Long Leaved Mock Olive); Pittosporum undulatum (Pittosporum); Pittosporum revolutum (Yellow Pittosporum); Pittorsporum multiflorum (Orange Thorn); Synoum glandulosum (Unscented Rosewood); Trema tomentosa (Native Peach); Tristaniopsis colina (Mountain Water Gum) Native Forest Type: Banksia: Banksia Integrifolia (Coast Banksia); Banksia serrata (Old Man Banksia) 2 Native Forest Type: Hakea: Hakea salicifolia (Willow Leaved Hakea) Native Forest Type: Leptospermum: Leptospermum laevigatum (Coast Tea Tree) Native Forest Type: Syncarpia: Syncarpia glomulifera (Turpentine) Native Forest Type: Casuarina: Casuarina glauca (Swamp Oak); Allocasuarina littoralis (Black Oak) Part 3: Species Planted in the Reserve Since the 1980s 3.1 Addition of Native Trees Endemic to Stanwell Park and which had Regenerated in the Reserve Native Forest Type: Banksia: Banksia ericifolia (Heath-leaved Banksia) 3.2 Addition of Native Trees Endemic to Stanwell Park and Not Found in the Reserve (16 species) Native Forest Type: Eucalyptus: Eucalyptus Botryoides (Bangalay); Eucalyptus saligna (Sydney Blue Gum) Native Forest Type: Rainforest: Alectryon subcinereus (Native Quince); Backhousia myrtifolia (Grey Myrtle); Ceratopetalum gummiferum (NSW Christmas Bush); Doryphora sassafras (Sassafras); Elaeocarplus reticulatus (Blueberry Ash); Endiandra sieberi (Corkwood); Ficus superba (Deciduous fig); Pararchidendron pruinosum (Snow wood); Planchonella australis (Black Apple); Polyscias murrayi (Pencil Cedar); Sloanea australis (Maiden's Blush); Syzygium oleosum (Blue Lilly Pilly); Toona Ciliata (Red Cedar); Tristaniopsis laurina (Water gum) 3.3 Addition of Wollongong Native Trees Not Endemic to Stanwell Park Archontophoenix cunninghamiana (Bangalow Palm); Brachychiton acerifolius (Illawarra Flame Tree); Callistemon salignus (Pink Tips Bottlebrush); Casuarina cunninghamiana (River Oak); Corymbia maculata (Spotted gum); Cyathea cooperi (Straw Tree Fern); Diploglottis cunninghamii (Native Tamarind); Dodonaea viscosa (Narrow Leaved Hop Bush); Ehretia acuminata (Koda); Emmenosperma alphitonioides (Yellow Ash); Eucalyptus Tereticornis (Forest Red Gum); Hibiscus heterophyllus (Native Hibiscus); Melaleuca styphielioides (Prickly Leaved Paperbark); Podocarpus elatus (Plum pine); Syzygium australe (Brush Cherry); Syzygium paniculatum (Magenta Lilly Pilly) 3.4 Addition of Native Trees Not Endemic to Wollongong, but Endemic to Other Parts of New South Wales Archontophoenix alexandrae (Alexander Palm); Argyrodendron trifoliatum (White Booyong); Araucaria bidwillii (Bunya pine); Araucaria heterophylla (Norfolk Island Pine); Davidsonia jerseyana (Davidson’s Plum); Eucalyptus globulus maidenii (Maiden's Gum); Eucalyptus grandis (Flooded Gum); Howea forestiana (Kentia Palm); Hymenosporum flavum (Native Frangipani); Lophostemon confertus (Brush Box); Macadamia tetraphylla (Macadamia); Melaleuca nodosa (Prickly Leaved Paperbark); Melaleuca quinquenervia (Broad Leaved Paper Bark); Stenocarpus sinuatus (Firewheel Tree) 3.5 Addition of Native Tree Endemic to Queensland (3 Species) Agathis robusta (Kauri Pine; Ficus microcarpa (Hills Fig); Graptophyllum ilicifolium (Holly Fuchsia) Part 4: The Look Alikes 3 Senna (Cassia) and Breynia; Trad and Commelina; Lantana and Trema; Madeira Vine, Pearl Vine and Snake Vine; Blackberry and Native Raspberry; Common Jasmine, Wonga Vine and Sweet Morinda; Slender Grape and Balloon Vine; Asthma Weed (Parietaria Judaica) Part 5: Bush Care Policies and Practice Volunteer Bush Regeneration in the Stanwell Park Reserve Hargrave Creek The Reclamation Area The Dress Circle Banksia Bush Care Volunteers Recent Projects: 29 Stanwell Avenue Community Involvement Art in the Park Community Education Tree Labels Rusa Deer The Future 4 Part 1: A History of the Stanwell Avenue Reserve The Stanwell Avenue Reserve consists of 4.5 hectares of land at the end of Stanwell Avenue, Stanwell Park. There are three houses on the site, Nos. 19, 31 and 35, a childcare centre and a surf club. 1.1 A Short Early History of Stanwell Park Stanwell Park was occupied by the Aboriginal people for possibly 42,000 years, because that was the age of Mungo Man, found in the Willandra Lakes district. Archaeological evidence along the eastern seaboard varies, but the longest goes back to 22,000 years. This may be explained by rising sea levels which may have covered up evidence of earlier settlement. Around the time of Captain Cook in 1770, the Dhargarigal clan of the Dharawal nation occupied Stanwell Park. They spoke a variant of the Dharawal language, which extended from Botany Bay in the north, west to the Bowral/Moss Vale area and south to the Shoalhaven River. The Dhargarigal's traditional lands stretched from Port Hacking to Sandon Point near Bulli, some 50 kilometres. The Wodi Wodi people occupied the land around Wollongong, Lake Illawarra and Shellharbour. Archaeological evidence points to social and trading links between the Dharawal people and surrounding groups. The Aboriginal name for Stanwell Park was Jujinbellily, and the whole of the northern Illawarra below the escarpment was known as Bulli, a name preserved by one of Wollongong suburbs. The white colonists called the area between Coalcliff, just south of Stanwell Park, and the current Bulli, Big Bulli, and Stanwell Park and Coalcliff were Little Bulli. A large part of the Dhargarigal people's diet was seafood, and there was a large kitchen midden around a sand dune on the northern end of Stanwell Park beach. However, it was destroyed when the northern lagoon was filled in with the sand to create the current picnic area, and more sand was taken away in the 1930s to build the Woronora Dam. It is not known how many Aboriginal people lived in the Stanwell Park area in 1788, when European occupation began, but it has been estimated that between 2,000 and 3,000 lived between Stanwell Park and Kiama, 75 kilometres to the south. We have no contemporary paintings of Aboriginal life at Stanwell Park, but there are some done further down the coast. 5 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Condon's Creek. (1848). Lithograph published in 1848 based on sketches by Captain R. Westmacott. (Note: Location is listed as East Corrimal Beach with a note that location could be Shellharbour)(Reproduced with permission from the collections of the Wollongong City Library and the Illawarra Historical Society), and a painting by John Skinner Prout in 1843 of an Illawarra campsite (Courtesy of State Library of NSW). As with most indigenous peoples, the main causes of death were western diseases, such as influenza, tuberculosis, venereal diseases, and particularly smallpox. Others died in the Frontier Wars between the Aboriginal people and the British colonists. The British Colony and Aboriginal Dispossession in the Illawarra The first contact between the Aboriginal people and Europeans in the Illawarra area was in 1796 when George Bass and Matthew Flinders sailed a tiny boat, the Tom Thumb, from Sydney Harbour and landed at Towradgi Point, north of Wollongong. The next known encounter was through the shipwreck of the Sydney Cove on Preservation Island in Bass Strait in 1797 and an extraordinary three months walk of 700 kms along the coast from Ninety Mile Beach in Victoria to Sydney by some