Wild Flowers [antikvár]

In the year AD 1770, after a voyage of many months across uncharted seas. Captain Cook came across a strange coast running north to south. This coast appeared on no maps and had never before been seen by civilised man. Warily, Cook and his men went ashore, ready for anything. They were prepared to beat off the attacks of wild beasts or ferocious savages. Instead they found a land of great beauty. The colourful flowers and plants of the area were breathtaking and Captain Cook named die area Botany Bay, in their honour. Tlie ship's botanist. Banks, went ashore to collect and identify samples. However, none of the breathtakingly beautiful plants were known to him; some were similar to known plants but were obviously completely new species. All too soon the ship had to sail on and Banks carefully packed away his samples for later study. These samples can still be seen, preserved in London, just as Banks left them.Though Cook, Banks and their men were astounded by the beauty and abundance of the plant life on the new continent, they had only seen a tiny part of the wonderful flowers and vegetation which cover Australia. In a land the size of Australia it is inevitable that there will be a wide variety of flora, but the range of plant life found is truly staggering. All types of habitat are represented on the continent, from tropical rain forest to desert, and each is rich in its own form of plant life. The lush rain forests are, perhaps, the richest in terms of species present. They can be found along the eastern Queensland coast, where the combination of moisture and heat makes the climate ideal for their growth. Along that state's northern coasts are found the dark, inpenetrable mangrove swamps which halted Burke and Wills on their epic journey. The Darling Downs and the vast inland stretches of New South Wales are covered by great grasslands. On these rolling plains the sheep and cattle graze where once mobs of kangaroos bounded across the scenery. Central and Western Australia are covered by great reaches of arid desert which ordy come to life after the all-too-rare rains.The great beauties of the Australian flora, be they wattles or waratahs, are the product of millions of years of unique evolution. The eons have produced, in Austraha, a range of exquisitely beautiful plants unmatched anywhere else in the world. Though he did not know it, the plants which Captain Cook found in Botany Bay had evolved in isolation over millions of years and had developed into species and whole genera that existed nowhere else on earth.Fifty million years ago Australia became endrely isolated from other landmasses following the break up of Gondwanaland, the great southern continent. In those long-distant times the climate of Australia was such that vast stretches of tropical rain forest covered most of the continent. But as the continentdrifted nortli, and the ice ages came and went, the climate became drier and hotter until the modern pattern of climate was estabhshed. As a result, much of the native Australian flora shows adaptations to survival in hot, dry areas. After aU most of the continent is now classified as 'dry' or 'arid'. The most obvious of these characteristics is the hardening of the leaves, or sclerophylly. This is most noticeable in the gum trees or eucalyptus, which are a well known part of the Australian flora and flourish across the continent.The diversity and uruqueness of the Australian flora presented great difficulties to early botanists, such as Bards, who attempted to categorise it. At first they tried to class the vegetation as Alpine, Savannah or Desert, according to European standards. But it was soon obvious that this was not possible and new categories had to be introduced, among them Mallee Scrub and Temperate Sclerophyll Forest.Throughout the heathlands of the country are found the beautiful bush flowers which require a certain amount of rainfall and are usually found at particular heights. The immense variety of bush flowers includes the scarlet banksia, named in honour of Barrks, and the fringed lily. By way of contrast the desert regions appear bleak and barren, the only plants to meet the eye are the occasional boab or a tussock of spinif ex. But the desert is, in reality, an area witharichvarietyof flowers just waiting for the right conditions. A fall of rain will be immediately followed by the rapid reawakening of thousands of seeds which have been lying dormant. Within days the desert floor will be a mass of colour as Sturt's desert pea and the miiu daisy burst into life before the merciless desert heat kills them off. In the rain forests of the east coast, where time appears to have stood still for eons, can be found tree ferns which were common throughout the world two hundred million years ago but are now restricted to small areas of forest. The most common species of trees in the areas of open forest are the eucalyptus and the acacias. The hundreds of species of eucalyptus are commonly known as gum trees and the home of the koala. The acacias are also better known by another name; wattles. The glorious yellow flowers have become the emblem of Australia and are a joy to behold. But the original wattie, named by early settlers, was a plant of the sandstone Callicmna. In time, the name became associated with the acacias as they are also festooned with golden flowers.The continent of Australia is a land of the most wonderful flowers, which grow in the mountains and the forests and even in the deserts. Red, yellow and blue, all shades of the rainbow are reflected in the riot of colour, creating an effect of sumptuous beauty unequalled anywhere on earth. The wild flowers of Australia are truly 'the most beautiful pictures of a most beautiful land'.