White Beech: The Rainforest Years

by Greer, Germaine

  ‘So if I’m not sure, I can look for a fallen leaf?’

  ‘Yes, but you won’t need to do that, I reckon. You’ll get used to it pretty quick.’

  Jane was wrong about that. Taking a leaflet for a leaf is one of the commonest mistakes made by the amateur dendrologist. It was to be many months before I could distinguish more than a very few species. For too long it seemed to me that I forgot more than I learned, that I was learning the same names over and over again. And then one day I found myself recognising trees at a distance, and even their saplings, and then their seedlings, which were often very different from the adult tree. I have still to master the art of recognising trees from their trunks when the canopy is out of sight, but I’m getting there.

  Jane read on:

  – Leaves often compound, and mostly with entire margins—

  ‘Entire margins?’

  ‘Without serrations or indentations. Not toothed, angled or lobed.’ She went on:

  – stranglers (figs) often common

  – palms often common

  – plank-buttresses often common

  – uneven, non-uniform canopy

  Vines – large, thick-stemmed vines common and diverse

  Large epiphytes – (orchids, ferns, aroids) common and diverse

  Special features – large-leaved herbs and ground-ferns common

  ‘Most authorities divide rainforest into more than four types, actually. I’m trying to remember my Tracey and Webb; they divide rainforest into more than a dozen types, I seem to recall. Your kind of subtropical rainforest is this one, Complex Notophyll Vine Forest.’

  Jane and Peter went home to Victoria and I was left to contemplate my folly. First of all I tramped down to the creek, and picked my way along it. It seemed preposterous to me that anyone could own anything like it and yet it was legally mine. Though the creek was full of weeds, red, pink and white Busy Lizzie, Mist Weed and Elephant Grass, it was equally full of promise. On the flat top of a rock in the creek I found a little heap of crayfish claws, indigo-blue, edged with vermilion, left there by the Azure Kingfisher. Many of the trees had snaking buttress roots, and within the curve of one of them, amid the bright blue fruit shed by the quandongs, I surprised a Noisy Pitta. I found a way into the forest and ventured into the twilight under the canopy where giant mosses and lycopods grew, and gushes of scented blossom swung down. The canopy, fifty metres above my head, was a total mystery to me.

  The first thing I needed was a flora survey. I had been given the name of a self-trained local botanist called David Jinks. He was famous because he had already fulfilled the botanist’s dream. Scrambling in a gully above Natural Arch he came upon a new tree, which he identified as a Eucryphia. This was no mean feat. Eucryphia is a small Gondwanan genus of only seven species, two in Chile and five (counting the new one) in Australia. The new Eucryphia is called Eucryphia jinksii, and academic botanists have had to make space for David in their hallowed company. He was quick to put together a tree survey for me, and to tell me that my sixty hectares had some of the highest biodiversity to be found anywhere outside the wet tropics. He explained that because we had different soil types, rich basaltic soils and krasnozems striped with sandstone, and a constant supply of moisture percolating down from the higher scarps of the McPherson Range, the Cave Creek forest was both montane and riparian, with odd dryer spots and patches of alluvium. Add the range of altitude, from 250 to 500 metres above sea level, plus the different aspects of these steep slopes, and you had niches to suit just about everything that could grow in any high-rainfall forest within two hundred kilometres.

  So I had little plastic signs made, screwed them onto star pickets and had them put up all along the unfenced boundary. ‘Cave Creek Rainforest Rehabilitation Scheme’ they said, and warned passers-by that anyone removing material of any kind from the property would be prosecuted. The name may seem odd, but a lot of thought went into it. Revegetation was the wrong word for what we were doing because it didn’t suggest the element of specificity; we weren’t just stopping erosion, we were replanting a forest. Restoration wasn’t the right word either because it made the trees sound like furniture. I went for ‘rehabilitation’ because it suggested the role that the forest would play in rebuilding itself. So CCRRS it is. The nearest thing to a logo we have is the image of the remarkable inflorescence of the small Bolwarra, Eupomatia bennettii. This is a true Gondwanan survivor, one of three species in the single genus of the family Eupomatiaceae. It was ten years before we succeeded in propagating this very special plant. Because the forest frugivores always stole the fruit before it was quite ripe, we finally decided to put a cage over the next fruiting plant we found. After watching the single fruit develop for a whole six months, waiting with increasing impatience till it was truly ripe and ready, we ended up with some hundreds of seedlings.

  David discovered galaxies of rare plants, Ardisia bakeri, Rhodamnia maideniana, Tapeinosperma repandulum, Quassia Mt Nardi, Neisosperma poweri, Cupaniopsis newmannii, Lepiderema pulchella. On basalt benches under the canopy on the north edge of the property he found many examples of the Southern Fontainea or Fontainea australis, recognisable by its oddly jointed leafstalks and the two oil glands on the underside of the base of the leaf. Syzygium hodgkinsoniae, Miss Hodgkinson’s lilly pilly, more commonly known as the Rose Apple, like the Fontainea listed as vulnerable, grows profusely all over CCRRS, much to David’s surprise. I had every intention of rebuilding the forest that should have been covering the cleared acres; to discover that by restoring that habitat I would be multiplying the numbers of individuals in threatened, endangered, vulnerable or rare species was an utter bonus.

  David warned me to expect a visitor from the Queensland herbarium whose job it was to check that another very rare plant on the property, the Smooth Davidson’s Plum, was still surviving. The consensus used to be that plants that survive only on land in private ownership were doomed. The three sites where this plant was then recorded are all privately owned. There was nothing the herbarium could do to stop me wiping the Cave Creek Davidsonias out of existence; they could only check to see if the record should be changed from ‘endangered’ to ‘critically endangered’ or even ‘extinct’. The Smooth Davidson’s Plum was first described by New South Wales botanists John Williams and Gwen Harden in 1979, and finally named by them in 2000, Davidsonia johnsonii, after L. A. S. Johnson.

  The late Lawrie Johnson is the acknowledged master of Gondwanan botany in Australia, responsible for the naming of four new plant families, thirty-three new genera and 286 new species, for segregating Angophora and Corymbia from the genus Eucalyptus, and for beginning the research on the Proteaceae that is now coming to fruition. In the preface he wrote for Flowers and Plants of New South Wales and Southern Queensland in 1975, Johnson urged readers:

  On the local front, resist by all legal means the unnecessary fouling of gullies by residential or other development at their heads, leading to mineral enrichment and choking by weeds. Resist ‘reclaiming’ (a profoundly dishonest word) of swamps. Prevent building on headlands and unnecessary artificial revegetation of sand-dunes. Oppose clearing, mowing, planting of roadsides; let the native vegetation or even harmless ‘weeds’ grow – they will support a rich life of invertebrate animals and some birds and other vertebrates (though certain noxious weeds cannot be tolerated and harbour for rabbits must sometimes be destroyed). Keep even the smallest patches of native or semi-native vegetation – the large reserves alone are not enough. (Rotherham et al., 7–8)

  Lawrie Johnson would have understood what we are doing at CCRRS. I like to think that we have his blessing. We have since found other groups of Davidsonia johnsonii, and we have propagated it as well, so with us it is no longer rare.

  David was drinking coffee on the verandah when I pointed to a small tree standing in the middle of the pasture and asked him what it was. He took one look and was off the verandah and bounding across the Kikuyu towards it. He came back bearing a twig.

>   ‘Unbelievable,’ he said. ‘This is Corynocarpus rupestris, the Glenugie Karaka. It’s not supposed to grow anywhere in Australia outside the Glenugie Peak Flora Reserve.’

  Glenugie Peak is the alternative name of Mount Elaine, a steep extinct volcano south-east of Grafton.

  ‘Karaka. Sounds like a Maori name.’

  ‘It is. The genus was first collected in New Zealand by the Forsters on Cook’s second voyage. “Karaka” means “orange” in Maori; the fruit of the New Zealand species, Corynocarpus laevigatus, is orange. It was one of the few plants actively cultivated by the Maori, who used the kernels to make a special kind of flour. The Australian species was first collected by a worker in the Glenugie State Forest in 1956, but the specimen sat around for twenty-five years until Gordon Guymer took a look at it and wrote it up in Flora of Australia [22: 214–16]. The species is divided into two subspecies. Corynocarpus rupestris arborescens is found on a few Queensland sites, but this isn’t it. You know it’s the subspecies rupestris rather than arborescens because of these stem-girdling larvae that keep pruning the tree, so it never gets any higher. No doubt about it. This is the genuine Glenugie Karaka, Corynocarpus rupestris rupestris. Look at this.’

  He showed me a sharp hooked tooth at the tip of a juvenile leaf. ‘That’s really primitive.’

  He might as well have been showing me the wing of a pterodactyl.

  ‘How do you suppose the Corynocarpus got here?’ I asked.

  ‘Birdshit?’

  ‘The Glenugie State Forest is more than a hundred ks away. Can a bird fly that far between bowel movements?’

  We’ve done our best since to propagate our Corynocarpus, which we have never seen to flower or fruit. It seems that this primitive tree is ‘gender dimorphic’ or ‘gynodioecious’; though it doesn’t have separate male and female inflorescences as such, in some specimens the female organs of the inflorescence are highly developed and in others the male (Brockie et al.). And it looks as if in certain circumstances, the inflorescence may change from one to the other. Whenever a branch falls, pruned by the in-dwelling larvae, we turn it into cuttings but so far only a very few have struck and they grow agonisingly slowly.

  Perhaps more important than anything else David found for me were two young men who had worked for him when he had a rainforest nursery. Simon and Will were both experienced in regeneration work and in identifying plants in the wild. Simon had worked for me for less than a week when he found a Plum Pine (Podocarpus elatus) that wasn’t on David’s list, and a pair of giant Water Gums (Tristaniopsis laurina) growing on a rocky slope otherwise covered in Mist Weed. Hardly a week went by without one or other adding new species to our flora list. Deep in the forest they found Ochrosia moorei, an endangered plant known from the Springbrook National Park.

  Besides endangered and vulnerable plants, there is another class of plants that are simply rare. Some species are so demanding of a particular suite of cultural conditions that they will never dominate in any plant community, like the Veiny Laceflower (Archidendron muellerianum), Ardisia (Ardisia bakeri), the Long-leaved Tuckeroo (Cupaniopsis newmannii), Smooth Scrub Turpentine (Rhodamnia maideniana) and Milkbush (Neisosperma poweri). It makes no sense to start trying to save a disappearing plant without dealing with the conditions that are causing its disappearance, and that requires restoration of the plant community of which the rare plant is a member. Plant the commoner members of the assemblage and in their own good time the rarer ones will turn up.

  Next came Rob Price and Lui Weber, who found Endiandra hayesii, another vulnerable inhabitant. Rob and Lui are proper old-fashioned botanists who are interested in the whole forest assemblage. They teach me the liverworts and lichens, ferns and mosses, sedges and grasses, orchids and vines, thousands upon thousands of species. Every time they come by they find more tree species.

  Sixty species in the canopy would have been the top of the predictable range; CCRRS had more than twice that. The point of restoring the forest was now reinforced. To let the Cave Creek forest reclaim its own would leave a living museum of genetic diversity that might even survive global warming, given its curious situation in a suspended drainage basin that could not dry out.

  It was probably inevitable that I would begin the restoration of the forest by making a bad mistake. I employed a local contractor to clear the forest edge and cut access paths while I was away in England. I came back to find that his huge machine had ripped down, as well as the curtain of Lantana that blocked access to the forest, dozens of young trees and as many branches with their epiphytes and birds’ nests, and had chewed out steep tracks that carved through root systems and gashed tender buttress roots. It had even run over a sleeping python. My friend Ann flew up from Melbourne to find me perplexed and uncertain. Will, who greatly disapproved of the heavy machinery approach, had been taking the workforce up into the corner of the property that was surrounded by national park and was teaching them to remove weeds by hand, following the method established by Joan and Eileen Bradley in the 1960s (ADB). He and his co-workers simply pulled out exotic soft weeds by hand, one by one. The soil was far too moist and fertile to remain naked for long; the area was no sooner cleared than it was time to clear it again. Will’s instinct was to leave all native vegetation; Native Raspberry, Kangaroo Vine and Cayratia were allowed to spread unchecked. In his wisdom he left all and any native tree, including the pioneer species Bleeding Heart (Omalanthus populifolius) and Native Mulberry (Pipturus argenteus). It took more than five years to happen, but eventually the pioneer species that he protected formed a canopy dense enough to shade out the weeds. This corner of the property is now genuine rainforest, with a knee-high understorey of Pollia crispata, shining in the gloom like a rising tide of four-pointed green stars. Female Paradise Riflebirds love to perch in the branches of the Native Mulberries.

  Back in 2003 it seemed that we were getting nowhere, slowly. We had yet to plant a single tree. The only place we had clear to plant was a half-hectare by the entrance gate that had been stripped by the excavator. It was fast filling up with Lantana again.

  ‘You’ll have to use herbicides, won’t you?’ said Ann.

  I thought so. ‘The excavator was too much, but we can’t pussyfoot around either. We have to clear and plant, and then keep the competition down until the little trees start casting shade. What I don’t know is whether the baby trees have to be shaded. Whether we should be planting them with nurse trees, pioneers that keep them shaded until they’re tough enough to grow in full sun.’

  We had plenty of nurse trees, mostly Blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon). The conventional wisdom is that these ‘nurse trees’ safeguard natural forest succession, but I could see that the rainforest saplings that had germinated underneath them were holding their breath. Some of the land originally cleared at Cave Creek had become what seemed to be a monoculture of Blackwoods until you walked through it and found hundreds of Red Cedar saplings standing underneath the wattles. By the lichens growing on the leaves you could tell that the saplings had been there for generations, waiting in vain for the Blackwoods to collapse. Forestry researchers have found that when Acacia melanoxylon leaves rot down they generate sufficient toxicity to inhibit the growth of surrounding plants, a phenomenon known as allelopathy (González et al.). Another sinister aspect of Blackwoods is that their seeds need extreme heat to germinate, and they pop up everywhere after fire. Their ubiquity at Cave Creek is a direct consequence of the original settlers’ use of fire to clear the rainforest.

  ‘What I’m thinking is that the trigger for the saplings in the rainforest to grow is the opening of a gap in the canopy. The little old trees you see in the understorey are waiting for a look at the sky, waiting for a neighbour tree to fall. They don’t want to be shaded. Being shaded will keep them small.’

  Ann was puzzled. ‘When you see rainforest trees in the open, they grow out instead of up, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s where the competition comes in. The trees that are he
ading for a gap in the canopy have to go up and up. They self-prune by shedding their lateral branches, because they have to make it to their place in the sun. The shaded lower branches die off and fall. What we’ll do is plant the full suite of canopy trees at one-metre centres, and let them fight it out between them. The fastest-growing, the Macarangas and Bleeding Hearts and Polyscias, are also the shortest-lived, so when they fall over, the slow growers will get their chance.’

  ‘What are you going to do about the cattle?’

  ‘Everyone says that I need them to keep down the grass, but they get up in the forest and eat the young Native Ginger and all the fallen fruit. I think I’ll have to get rid of them. I’ve tried electric fencing but it seems to malfunction all the time. Too much wet vegetation, I think. We can’t stop the cattle peeing and shitting in the creek either. And they trample the pythons.’

  ‘Does the bloke who owns the beasts actually pay you for letting them graze here?’

  He didn’t.

  ‘So get rid of them.’

  I did. It was a sad day, because there were two little steers that I rather loved. They had been household pets in their former home and knew how to get treats by being cute, but they got loaded onto the truck with all the others and away they went. I asked Garry to pull out all the barbed wire, wherever it was, and take it to the dump. We knocked over the hay shed, which was just a roof on posts sunk in 44-gallon-drums filled with concrete, and pulled down the dairy. The young Red Cedar that had been growing through the dairy roof threw up its arms to the sky. Borer had got into part of it, but we carefully cut the diseased part away and the tree never looked back. Someone collected the portable muster yard with its bails and rails.

  ‘You realise that you’re steadily reducing the value of this real estate,’ said Ann.

  ‘Mm. David thinks that revegetating land like this will one day be understood to enhance its value, but I’ll be long dead by that time, supposing such a time ever comes.’