It’s spring and wherever you look, you can’t help but notice the bush is turning golden with wattle blossom, but how many types of wattle are there?
Take a close look and you will find that not all that golden blossom is the same. Some are ball-shaped flowerheads and others are catkin shaped, some wattles have feathery bipinnate leaves and others have leaf-like blades while others have spiky or needle-like foliage.
In fact there are more than 60 different species of wattle native to East Gippsland.
Wattles are species of Acacia and they are just one of the multitude of wildflowers to bloom in spring. Beneath the wattles you can find an array of smaller shrubs, lots of different pea-flowering plants or egg and bacon as many people call them, and there’s plenty of pink and white heath, cheery yellow faces of Guinea Flower (Hibbertia spp.), Common Heath (Epacris impressa), Pink-bells (Tetratheca spp.) and Dusty Miller (Spyridium spp.) to name a few.
Look up and you will see vines such as Clematis, climbing up trunks creating a curtain-like canopy of white flowers, and on the ground beneath are carpets of Purple Coral Pea (Hardenbergia violaceae) and patches of the bright red pea flowers of Running Postman (Kennedia prostrata) creeping over bare ground. And of course, there are a multitude of native orchids, some tiny and hard to see, others tall and bright when the sun shines strong.
How fortunate we are to live in a region surrounded by natural beauty, from the coast to the mountains biodiversity abounds where there is native vegetation and it all comes to a peak in spring.
No two areas are the same, many wildflowers thrive on dry rocky hills, others grow best in moist shaded gullies and some prefer the wind-swept sand dunes. Each and every one is so very precious and a crucial link in the chain of life where insects and birds feed on the flowers, birds feed on the insects, and all that visit them help in pollination to perpetuate bush flora for the future.
For those who are passionate about nature, there are few places more diverse for wildflower enthusiasts than East Gippsland. It is a wonderfully enriching interest to have and there’s so much to learn about how ecosystems work.
This fascination with nature has led members of the Bairnsdale and District Field Naturalists Club to regularly explore flora and fauna in all corners of the East Gippsland region. Consequently, over the years a huge bank of knowledge has been accumulated and a decade ago the club published its orchid observations in a book, Orchids of East Gippsland.
And now the club has published its observations of other flowers in a new book, Wildflowers of East Gippsland.
This book includes more than 1500 species from the tallest trees to the smallest groundcovers, and features hundreds of colour photographs taken by club members. It is an important resource for anyone interested in local flora.
Wildflowers of East Gippsland will be launched at the Bairnsdale Library at 6pm on Friday, September 6, and a celebration of East Gippsland wildflowers will be held at 2pm on Saturday, September 7, at Lakes Entrance Mechanics Hall. Books will be available at both events.
