FLORA OF MY LOCAL (NORTH QUEENSLAND) ‘VILLE – IX
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.
August – Smoke and Sprinklers
In the driest overall year for a while, the Dry now reigns supreme in The Ville. Green on the ground means supplied water. Out West there has reputedly been a much better season, but around The Ville, the bush is DRY.
The immediate consequence is fires. Not yet bushfires, uncontrolled blazes, but burning off by civil authorities. In the city proper, an unfortunately UN-“controlled” burn left the front of Castle Hill, the local landmark, with two walking tracks shut and the surrounding land burnt out. At the University, abbreviated to JCU, the coastal end of the main campus oval, abuts on the hospital grounds, and there, the sprinklers reign supreme around the wealthy medical faculties. The other end is currently filled with science remants – satellite dishes, buildings in demolition, and bush. Now burnt bush, amid which a standard of the local flora stands, undeterred. Gums like this have been through this for probably millennia. Their botanical name is eucalyptus platyphulla, but I’ve known them all my life by the local name: poplar gums.
In a curated environment, as in this suburb, they can look spectacular.
Native to tropics everywhere but Australia, begonias flourish in The Ville. These two, again, are in my own yard. First, fragile but spectacular in both leaves and flowers, this version of the “Pink Begonia” – yes, that’s all.
And this one, proper name Begonia Fusca, labelled on Google Lens as “Rare” will, if allowed, take over my garden. Like all begonias it’s fragile, and likes shaded sites, but every year it also procudes these magnificent long-stemmed blossom clusters. The stalk length has led me to nickname it the Triffid Begonia, after the ET plants in John Wyndham’s well-known SF novel.
Last but by no means least, another migrant, the Bombax ceida tree. Much planted in public areas now, can grow extremely tall, and most years, if not in an assiduously watered site, it sheds all its leaves and covers itself, to the delight of every nectar-eating bird, with spectacular red flowers.
Their petals make a red snowfall on the ground below. Earlier than usual this time, but whether the year’s overall wet or drv, the bombax flowers.
