FLORA OF MY LOCAL (NORTH QUEENSLAND) ‘VILLE VII
Preamble
I once heard a local on a Spanish bus proclaim, as we topped a hill, and Barcelona in all its then hundred square miles and three-and-a-half million inhabitants spread out before us, “Es mi pueblo!” My local town is no competition, but it is my “village,” my pueblo, even if tone-deaf founders endowed it with the clanking name of “Townsville,” which I more often shorten to The Ville. This is a series of (brief) blogs about some flora you may chance upon in the The Ville during a calendar year
In my capacious state, “The Ville” lies far north of the state capital, Brisbane, and still well north of Capricorn, the official tropical zone marker, but though it’s now abundantly endowed with palms, The Ville sports no tropical rainforests or overflowing waterfalls. In fact, The Ville belongs in the category of Dry Tropics – that is, its rainfall is a long way from the heavy average needed to naturally support such delights.
Nevertheless, The Ville does have an abundance of flora, native or imported and most months show some of them off to advantage. Note: For The Ville, the traditional four-season year cycle is not only inverted, at least if you live in the northern hemisphere, but also sways in and out of sync with the native seasonal cycle. And that has only two parts, the Dry, and the Wet. The Wet runs optionally from November to February, the Dry has the rest.
June – Dealing with the Dry
Though it’s the first official Australian month of winter, the Ville this year has so far been unseasonably if explicably warmer than usual, barring one cold(er) snap last week. But in tropical terms, the Wet is well gone, and The Ville is reverting to its old-style brown-off wherever sprinklers don’t work. Though the trees are still green, there are now few annual flowerbeds, and less of the uncultivated blossoms from in and after the Wet, so less colour all round.
Less flashy but more lasting than flowers are the ferns and other cultivars. My garden now boasts only one of three inherited Birds Nest ferns, but that one is looking very healthy and determined, as a native of the Oz tropics should.
One enduring splash of colour comes from the Calcutta Sunset Mussaeanda bushes. Musseandas, originating in Arican or Asian tropics, are another staple of Ville gardens, but the basics colours are blush to deeper pink – the Masai Blood variety – or less commonly, white. I only became aware of the Calcutta type this year, but now I see them frequently. This yard just across the creek has the two types next to each other. Calcutta Sunset, perhaps needless to say, is on the right.
I’ve seen one other surprising blossom event this month: one of the commonest native trees in The Ville, wild or planted, are what my family called Ti-trees ,but are now more commonly known as Paperbarks, or Melaleucas. The latter is somewhat misleading, since it’s their family rather than species name, but by any title, they are a water-liking, usually well-shaped, broad-leafed species, notable for their beautiful cream bottlebrush- type flowers, which have a distinctive carrying scent. I smelt this one before I saw it ,as we crossed a local weir on our Thursday run/ shuffle this morning,. They are also supposed to flower in spring or early autumn, so it was an extra pleasure to find one now, so far into the Dry.
