Tropical Zone Gardening: Restless natives of the Top End, 1 by tropicbreeze

tropicbreeze wrote:
Jen, there's a lot where the photos just didn't come out any good. Then there's so many more that I haven't even photographed yet. So I'll keep them coming. It's great for me because I'm getting so much help with IDing them.

I get the opportunity to do lots of different surveys through my work. Croc surveys are one of the most common. I've got firearms training plus additional training specific to croc attacks. Other surveys I do are marine turtles (also involving croc attack risk), feral animals (Water Buffalo, Horses, Cattle, Donkeys and pigs), fauna and flora. The marine turtle surveys I've been avoiding the past few years, done so many already. No fun sitting on a deserted tropical island all night waiting for turtles to come up, and then wrestling them (Flat-back Turtles) after they've laid, or chasing around the reefs on a speeding boat and leaping into the water after Green Turtles.

Dave, I got those photos today, but forgot to bring the cable for down loading from my camera. Will have to do it Monday, I'm off for 4 days from work. But the leaves and shrub shape are very different to the coastal one. It's about a 70 - 80 cm erect shrub, with numerous branches tending to vertical rather than spreading like the S. sericea. Thickest stems are less than a centimetre diameter. Largest leaves (about 3 cms or less long) are towards the bottom of stems. Leaves get progressively smaller higher up the stems.

This is Acacia mimula, called Mankalbbu by Aborigines. (Note that when I give Aboriginal names, it's in the language I speak. There were about 600 different Aboriginal languages across the country.) It grows as a very small tree in well drained, lowland, sandy country. Flowers come late in the wet (now). For Aborigines it's a 'calendar plant', indicating the flood waters will be receding and the fish will be moving back up the rivers, ie time to go fishing.

Photo 108