Acacia binervata (Two-veined Hickory)
The first column in this series dealt with the coastal wattle, Acacia longifolia, which is a small to medium-size shrub that is salt tolerant and grows very well along sand dunes. Acacia binervata, whose common name is two-veined hickory, grows along the east coast, from Narooma on the NSW South Coast to Mt Tambourine in Southern Queensland, and as far west as Mittagong.
Acacia binervata grows mainly in the circle of the Stanwell Avenue Reserve and is a much taller tree. It has dark brown scaly bark, and its leaves tend to be wider than the coastal wattle, with two prominent veins running lengthways along the leaf.
Its flowers are different too, in that they form many spherical flower heads, as distinct from the cylindrical flower spikes that we see in the coastal wattle and the third wattle in the reserve, Acacia maidenii (maiden’s wattle).
It flowers between August and November.
There are 324 of these trees on the reserve, most of them within the circle of Stanwell Avenue. Some of them have reached the end of their life and are dying.
Once the lantana, ochna and senna were removed from the reserve, smaller trees have now germinated from the seed bed.
Banksia Bush Care news
Lockdown has provided us with plenty to do in the Reserve. Bill Harris and I have cleared a block of land between 31 and 35 Stanwell Avenue, which is also part of the Reserve. It was really in a dreadful state and there is so much weed material that I have been able to build another eight giant nests in the area, bringing the total now to 200. We will continue the gallery idea in the walkway to the beach alongside No. 35 (Doran House).
Many parents I see while working in the bush tell me that their young children think that the nests are dinosaurs’ nests, and they want to know when the dinosaurs will hatch. So, during this lockdown, I decided to excite their imaginations even further by making a series of eggs with different kinds of dinosaurs emerging from them. The dinosaur gallery will be on the western side of the track just as you leave from Stanwell Avenue.
I am receiving very positive feedback about the Modern Art Tributes on Eggs (MATE) Exhibition, and I have built a few more nests in the bush track to provide some more “frames” for miniature famous paintings.
Many of the people whom I met while working along the track were from Helensburgh and further south and had read about the gallery in the previous issue. I have provided some freshly fired eggs to some more enthusiastic locals who will be contributing to the egg gallery.
So far, there has been no vandalism.
