Big Trees

Botanic gardens in Australia are quite fascinating because of the weird and wonderful vegetation that is to be found down under. I'm always impressed with the trees particularly the giant figs and eucalyptus trees, the latter are the main reason that bush fires take hold so rapidly and extensively. Their leaves are full of highly volatile oils and beneath the trees bark and leaf litter won't compost due to these oils building up a reserve of kindling that provides fuel for bush fires. In fact eucalypts or gum trees as they are also known, are susceptible to fire but depend on fire in order to kickstart their seeds into life. Melbourne Botanic Gardens have many fine specimens of gum trees some hundreds of feet tall. Another type of tree that can grow pretty big in Oz is the fig tree, some of the largest being the Moreton Bay Fig which can not only reach 200 feet tall but spreads over a wide area - we've seen some in Australia that you could hide an elephant in. I managed to hide in this comparatively small one!

Peek a Boo

However one of the most impressive finds for me wasn't Australian at all! There are huge numbers of mature English Elms in Melbourne. Virtually wiped out in the UK due to Dutch Elm Disease they have been isolated from the dread virus over here and there are parkfuls and avenues everywhere - a bit gaunt in the winter as they've no leaves on at the moment but you can still appreciate the size of them from this photo.

So you can see that we are taking our responsibilities very seriously in our quest to explore the flora and fauna of the Antipodes - we've even seen a kangaroo which we'll tell you about in our next blog!