June 1959 School Magazine

Brisbane GW!s' Grammar School Magazine

July,, 195$

July, 1959

Brisbane Gitls' Grammar Sc:hool Magazine

The crowns of these trees form one tangled canopy of green, through which direct sunlight seldom filters. Great elk and stag- horns encircle the trunks , and exotic orchids nestle in the forks . Lawyer vines twist in and out, and giant water-vines, which may have a circumference of twelve inches, hang in loops from the tree-tops to the ground. These vines are hollow and a large quantity of water is stored inside, but only a desperate person should seek proof of this, for to cut the vine is to kill it. Nature is seldom guilty of leaving a plant without some form of protection against its enemies. The wild raspberry vine, with its summer crop of juicy red berries which the jungle birds love, has thorns covering its leaves and stems. Impenetrable prickly hedges of raspberry border mountain roads and tracks ,. and it is one of the first greedy jungle plants to encroach upon cleared land. But a pricking from a wild raspberry is not to be compared with the sting of the dreaded Gympie tree (Lapor- tea moroides). This giant softwood (its average height is one hundred feet, but several on the plateau are twice this, and have a girth of over forty feet) grows in the valleys and lower parts of the mountains. It is hardly ever found above 3000 feet. The leaves are large, round and flat, and are covered with tiny hairs which attach themselves to the skin of any unfortunate· person who brushes against a fallen branch or young tree. These invisible poison barbs inject formic acid into the skin, and, remaining embedded there, still cause agony days after the initial contact whenever the skin is placed in water. Fortunately,. my knowledge on this subject is not first-hand. The pain is so exquisite that it has been known to drive a horse mad. Yet, the Gympie is not invincible. Its leaves are usually full of holes eaten by a tiny insect which, by some miracle of Nature, is immune to the sting, and devours even the barbs. The popular antidote for the sting is the juice of the calla lily or cunjevoi, which can always be found growing at the foot of the Gympie ,. but the Foresters say that they find the best relief comes from the sap of the .tree itself. Few tree trunks are free from any growth. Some are cov- ered with moss and lichen (at least, only one half, the southern, is covered, while the northern portion of the trunk is quite smooth; this fact is useful to a lost bushman). Others are covered with vines. The strangest of these is the Watkin's Strangler Fig. When the seed, dropped by a bird, lodges in a tree, it sends roots down to the ground, which criss-cross all over the host tree. The fig grows, the roots thicken, and the tree is actually "strangled to death".. Yet the fiq is not a true parasite, for it 14

obtains its own food. Eventually the host tree rots away and all that remains is a skeleton of latticed roots which form strange grotesque patterns, cmd a head of fig leaves far, far above. It is interesting to compare different stages in the process of de- struction, for there ore olwoys plenty of exomples around in the jungle. The most remarkable of oll trees on the ploteou is the Ant- arctic Beech, Nothofagus moorei. At obout 3,500 feet, the pine trees suddenly disappear, and miniature forests of these beeches take their ploce. Reputed to be 3000 years old, they are so nomed because they have been found in a fossilised stote in the Antarctic continent. Their blackened roots rise six feet out of the ground, exposed by soil erosion over the centuries, ond a person foolish enouqh to brave what reptiles may be lurking there, moy easily stond in the great cavity. The beeches hove· an atmosphere about them which I find quite awe-inspiring. Gnarled, and encrusted with grey "beard" lichen and bracket fungus, they command the admiration of even the least romantic hiker. New shoots grow out from the base of the tree and it is thus that their life is preserved. The fresh wood, with smoll glossy leaves, seems incongruous ogainst the bla ck trunk. If the tree itself is not beautifuL its inseparable companion, the Beech orchid, certoinly is. Small ond delicate, with white star- like flowers, it can always be ·found growing on any Beech, and nowhere else. Attempts to propogate it on other trees have failed. The link is strange for, compared with its host, the orchid is a very new plant. The great old trEJe is unfortunately dying out on the plateau. As old trees inevitably fall victim to cyclones, no new y oung ones are taking their place. Seedlings spring up but they soon die, for climatic conditions are very different now from those· 3000 years ago. It is a miracle that the parent trees have with- stood the changes. A similar "dying out" is taking place in the few remaining homes of the Beech-the west coast of Tas- mania, New Zealan.d, and Patagonia. Many other treE~S, countless varieties of fungus, lichen and flowers are worthy of discussion here, but I think perhaps that I have said too much already. I shall be satisfied if this account provides sufficient inducement for one person to visit the plateau and see for himself or herself what is so difficult to describe. -ELAINE WILKINSON. 15