photographer PETER GRANT
There’s no escaping it: much of our bushland is green. If Inuit people really do have 50 words for snow, perhaps Tasmanians should have dozens of words for green. We could start with lime, bottle, grass, glaucous, olive and emerald green. We could go on to moss, sage, fern, khaki, sea and even Granny Smith green.
Look closely, particularly in forests and woodlands like those of The Patch, and you’ll find every verdant shade you could hope for.
Just sometimes, however, I long for a sharp contrasting colour, something to lift the spirit. And that’s never truer than at the end of a long winter. Thankfully we can always count on wattle to scatter its wonderful gold around our bush in spring. Locally, silver wattle (Acacia dealbata) is certainly the tall poppy of the golden flora.
I’ve long pondered what prompts this seasonal tide of colour, this botanical alchemy that transforms the quiet bush to a Mardi Gras of gold. My left brain was hypothesising some complex interaction between temperature, rainfall and seasonal conditions. But then my right brain recalled a fascinating passage in The Talmud, that ancient collection of Jewish thought, which conjectures that, “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, 'Grow, grow’.”
I extend that fancy to wattle, imagining a massed choir of angels bending seasonally over our acacias, enthusiastically whispering, “Gold, gold!”
Of course wattle isn’t the only gilt-tinted plant that brightens The Patch. Surely our shaggypea, blanketleaf, goodenia, scaly button, pultenaea, hibbertia, banksia and other yellow-flowering plants also have their angels? What about celebrating a few of these quieter achievers?
If we start with its name, we could understand why the golden shaggypea (Oxylobium ellipticum) isn’t universally known and adored. Most of the time, it’s a straggly, nondescript understorey shrub, towered over by wattles and eucalypts. Even its fans find it hard to spot for much of the year. But catch it on the right spring day, and this ugly duckling becomes a glowing swan. Its golden, pea-like flowers cluster conspicuously on the branch extremities, firing up the bush even on a dull day.
Equally burdened by its bland common name is the blanketleaf (Bedfordia salicina). Another understorey shrub, its deep gold flowers come in clusters that give away its membership of the daisy family. The flowers contrast superbly with the dark green leaves, and could easily have been chosen to exemplify Australia’s green and gold colours but for two factors: it’s found only in Tasmania, and the golden wattle (Acacia pycnantha) is already our national floral emblem.
Gorse is a more problematic gold-flowering plant. It must be attended by errant angels, or perhaps they missed the memo about seasonality, because there’s never a time in our bush when gorse is not flowering. Its constancy of flowering is behind the old saying, “When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing is out of season.” Also known as furze or whin, gorse is in the Ulex genus, part of the pea family. It’s native to western Europe and north Africa, and most Australians wish it had stayed there. Prickly, fast-growing, and very difficult to eradicate, gorse is prone to invade bushland and usurp good grazing land. Its environmental and economic impacts have made it an official “weed of national significance” in Australia.
On a visit to Scotland some years ago, I tutted to my host about a hill “infested” with gorse. “Och, furze belongs here,” he quickly corrected. He went on to tell me some of its uses, including for hedges, fodder and fuel. He added, with a twinkle in his eye, that the flowers can even be fermented to make beer and wine.
There’s a local use for gorse that slightly mutes my railing against it. Researchers have found that eastern barred bandicoots (Perameles gunnii) often use gorse for nesting and as a refuge from predators. These rabbit-sized marsupials are all but extinct in mainland Australia, thanks partly to predation by foxes and cats. In Tasmania, they’re considered a threatened species, especially because of habitat loss. We’re lucky enough to consider them common in The Patch and in our garden. The tell-tale sign of their presence is the cone-shaped holes that indicate where they’ve probed in search of the worms and other invertebrates on which they feed.
That small plus for gorse aside, I still try to eradicate it from my garden and the nearby bush. But first I like to establish other local native plants that will provide cover for bandicoots and other creatures. I’ve found certain poa grasses and a couple of pultenaea species do the job well. The latter have the added benefit of flowering gold in the spring and summer.
In planting those I can really feel that I’m on the side of the angels.
Peter Grant lives in the foothills of kunanyi/Mt Wellington with his wife. He worked with the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service for 24 years as manager of interpretation and education. His passion for the natural world led him to write Habitat Garden (ABC Books) and found the Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize. More of his writing can be seen at naturescribe.com.