The following comment is from an avid birdwatcher who regularly visits the Botanic Gardens.
The gardens look a bit sad at present and probably won’t recover from the floods in 2013 as breeding habitat for the egrets, ibis, cormorants and spoonbills. The islands where the majority of the birds breed have all but disappeared. The largest one with the recent rain is still under water and the large trees are bending closer and closer to the water. Many of the Little Black Cormorant chicks drowned and the 2 pairs of Pied Cormorants may well have given up their nesting attempt. Fortunately the Royal Spoonbills had a good year with at least 16 nests. They started a bit later than the egrets and there are still quite a few short billed juveniles around. Good to watch the fledglings being fed. They have the same action as the ibis - flapping a wing, whacking the adult and being noisy. Dead trees are important for nesting Spoonbills and should not be seen as debris to be cleared. Along with the usual raptors (had 8 species here one morning last week), a pair of Square-tailed Kites have been around, the Grey Goshawk dashes through daily but you have to be lucky to see it and today a juvenile Peregrine stirred the birds up. Sadly the pine trees where the Collared Sparrowhawks nested were all cut down last year. A few of the visitors with the end of summer have appeared e.g. Golden Whistler, Grey Fantail, flocks of Silvereyes etc. Fork-tailed Swifts have gone through in small numbers this week too.
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Some interesting fungi have been seen in the Botanic Gardens following the recent wet weather. Near Fairymead House some red fungi called Craypot Stinkhorn (Colus pusillus) was growing on the mulch. According to James Cook University, “The reddish arms of this fungus burst forth from a gelatinous egg to form an open weave basket. The stem is very short and the arms do not separate. The smell is like faeces or rotten meat and attracts flies which disperse the spores.” It did smell bad! Near the Historical Museum, a different kind of stinkhorn was also growing in the mulch. This one had attracted flies. Its name is Phallus rubicundus. You can probably work out how it got its name. The Botanic Gardens is really buzzing with nesting birds at the moment. Hundreds of egrets are busy mating and building nests in the trees next to the lagoons and on the islands.
Normally egrets are mostly white in colour. But during breeding times, they change the colour of their feathers and some produce delicate ornamental feathers (plumes). Most of the egrets nesting in the Gardens are Cattle Egrets. They have been increasing in numbers in Australia since the 1960s. You can easily see their beautiful orange head, neck and breast, with similarly tinted long loose neck plumes. Their bill which is normally yellow becomes bright red. Amongst the Cattle Egrets are nesting Intermediate Egrets and Little Egrets. The Intermediate Egret is also known as the Plumed Egret, due to its long filamentous plumes during breeding time. Last century, many birds were killed around the world so that their plumes could be used to decorate hats. The colour change during breeding is impressive – the bill becomes deep pink to bright red with a yellow tip and green base; the area behind the eyes (the lores) are bright green; the eyes are red and the legs ruby red. Little Egrets also develop extra plumage during breeding, with two ribbon-like head plumes, and abundant plumes on the back and breast. When you visit the Gardens, take some time to find the nesting egrets, see if you can identify the different species and marvel at their natural beauty. Have you ever seen a green flower?
This week one of the most beautiful flowers in the world is on display at the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens. Right next to Café 1928, the Jade Vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) is producing several sprays of its spectacular cascading flowers. These flowers are rare in cultivation in Australia. They are a highly unusual colour, unlike that of almost any other plant. Jade Vine is a native of the tropical forests of the Philippines, so in colder climates they can only be grown successfully in large glasshouses. It is considered an endangered species due to the destruction of its natural habitat and the decrease of its natural pollinators (bats). The vine in the Botanic Gardens does not produce seeds due to the absence of this pollinator. Horticulturalists in the Kew Gardens in England have used a technique to mimic the bats and have been successful in getting seeds to develop. If there is an enthusiastic volunteer in Bundaberg who would like try this, more Jade Vines could be produced! Below is a list of the rare fruit species which are growing in the plot in the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens.
While some of these are familiar to most people, many are virtually unknown to the general public as they are not suitable for mass production and transport. There is excellent information about most of them on the internet. One of them (Guabiju) is quite rare and is probably the only one growing in a public garden in Australia! Thank you to the members of the Hinkler Branch of Rare Fruit Australia for growing these plants and to Council’s Parks staff for maintaining the plot. Acerola Cherry (Malpighia glabra) Amla (Phyllanthus emblica) Black Mulberry “Ray’s choice” Black Sapote (Diospyros digyna) Bucupari (Garcinia braziliensis) Canistel (Pouteria campechiana) Common Fig (Ficus carica) Finger lime (Citrus australasica) Giant Lau Lau (Eugenia megacarpa) Grumichama (Eugenia dombeyi) Guabiju (Myrcianthes pungens) Imbe (Garcinia livingstonei) Jaboticaba (Myrciaria cauliflora) Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) Kwai Muk (Artocarpus hypargyraeus) Longan (Dimocarpus longan) Loquat (Eriobotrya jabonica) Mango “Mahajanka” Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum dulcificum) Natal Plum (Carissa grandiflora) Panama Berry (Muntingia calabura) Peanut Butter Fruit (Bunchosia agenta) Pummello “Chan” Rainforest Plum (Eugenia candolliana) Red Shahoot Mulberry Sapodilla (Manilkara sapota) Solomon Island Terminalia Soursop (Annona muricata) Spanish Tamarind (Vengaria edulis) Star Apple (Chrysophyllum cainito) Wampee (Clausena lansium) White Shahtoot Mulberry Yellow Cherry Guava On a picture-perfect day (11th June 2016), 22 people turned out for our very first “Friends of Bundaberg Botanic Gardens” meeting. I couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. We had a friendly group of people, plenty of interesting things to look at and lots of good food to share for morning tea and lunch.
After we looked at the written objectives of the group we began a walk around the gardens taking in the Australian Rainforest area, Rare Fruit Orchard and any trees, shrubs, insects, animals or birds that caught our attention along the way. At present we have no plans for another meeting anytime soon but will be taking time to review what we learned and observed from our first meeting. Watch this website for any updates or news: www.fobbotanicgardens.weebly.com Enquiries: Ray – 04-1919-9168 Enjoy an educational walk in the beautiful Botanic Gardens with 2 of our expert local botanists. This is the first get together of the new Friends of the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens group and it will be a fun social day. Bring a biro to take notes as Ray Johnson and Maureen Schmitt lead a tour through the Gardens, identifying some of the hundreds of interesting species. Share morning tea and stay for lunch if you have time. Also bring any ideas of how the Gardens can be improved. Meet at 9.30am near the Rare Fruits orchard, next to the Hall of Aviation. For more information phone Ray Johnson on 0419199168 What is this common species found in the Botanic Gardens and along many of our
local creeks? Find out on Saturday. The rare fruits section in the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens is a very interesting place to visit at the moment. Every fruit is edible! The orange fruits of the Imbe tree (Garcinia livingstonia) are bearing well. They taste a bit like apricots. This tree is native to East Africa. You won’t see it in a supermarket as the skin is too thin and delicate.
The Giant Lau Lau (Eugenia megacarpum) has many large red fruits. One of them was 15cm long and could barely fit in my hand. The fruit is white and smells like a rose. The Panama berry (Muntingia calabura) is producing hundreds of pink fruit. They taste like fairy floss. The birds like them as well, so you have to be quick. Two mulberry trees have been netted to prevent the tasty fruit from being eaten by birds or flying foxes. One is a variety favoured by Ray Johnson of the Rare Fruit club. The flavour is intense. Bundaberg is very fortunate to have a dedicated group of volunteers who love rare or unusual fruit and are prepared to grow them for the public to enjoy. Trevor Galletly, A member of the “Friends” group recently found some fungi in mulch on the edge of a garden bed in the Bundaberg Botanic Gardens. He photographed it and sent the photo to Fungimap - Australia's national non-profit fungi organisation. It was identified by mycologist Dr Tom May as Chlorophyllum molybdites. Common names are false parasol or green-spored parasol. The sighting was entered into their database.
Trevor noted that the fungi appeared after storm rain for several days and maximum temperatures of 26 – 28 degrees. Although it looks like an attractive, edible mushroom, the species is highly poisonous and produces severe gastrointestinal symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. Contact details for Fungimap Inc are: [email protected] www.fungimap.org.au Ph 03 92522374. Their fungi identification service is provided free of charge, but donations are welcome to support integral research, education and conservation work. The Alectryon ramiflorus (Isis tamarind) trees in the Botanic Gardens should be in flower now. There are four trees in the Gardens. One of them is so high that I have not seen what sort of flowers it has, from the ground. Of the other three, two are male. One of those actually bore a bunch of female flowers last year and they progressed to fruit, and I am keen to check if that branch has done so again. The female flowers have pretend anthers to attract insects searching for high-protein pollen. They progress to fruit with a bright red aril if pollinated and that fruit is edible. If you choose it at the correct time it is deliciously sweet. Timing is everything of course. I think they have been called ‘tamarinds’ because their foliage, not their fruit is like Tamarindus indica. Peter Brown Location of Isis Tamarinds growing in the Gardens
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Some highlights of the Gardens Archives
February 2021
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Friends of Bundaberg Botanic Gardens