By Jonathan Lethbridge
 |
Our first stop was Dunk Island, about halfway between Townsville and Cairns, and about 2 miles off the coast. I had a good feeling about the place as soon as I stepped off the [terrifyingly] small plane that took us there. At the entrance to the "airport" arrival hut, was a large mature Zamia furfuracea, coning left, right and centre. As I dropped all my bags and stopped to feel the texture as the leaves, as I commonly do when I see this species, my wife raised her eyes to the sky, and contemplated the next 50 years. About a quarter of the island is devoted to the actual resort, the rest is National Park managed by the NPWS. They are not too thrilled by the introduction by the resort owners of non-native ornamental plants right next to pristine rainforest. Having said that, and despite the lavish seed production of the non-native palms and cycads, during my entire stay I spotted absolutely no transgressions. There seemed to be a strict botanical boundary between the resort edge and the start of the National Park, which is good news.
Judging by the vigour of the Zamia furfuracea, climatic and soil conditions on the island seemed to be perfect for this species. It made the plants in Kew Gardens look feeble and under-nourished. The minimum temperatures probably never fall below 12 C at night, nor rise above 35 C in summer, and the rainfall is high. Tully, a town on the coast at roughly the same latitude is one of the wettest places in Australia. The resort planners had also planted out Lepidozamia peroffskyana, Cycas revoluta and Cycas circinalis. Although the Lepidozamia actually comes from much further South, it was doing well, and the leaflets were typically shiny. I had a juvenile plant right outside my door. The Cycas were not as healthy as the Lepidozamia or Zamia, but I would say that the C. circinalis was doing better than the C. revoluta. Interesting as finding these plants was, I was on the lookout for the real natives of North East Queensland.
 |
| Bowenia spectabilis, Flecker BG, Cairns |
I was hoping to find specimens of Cycas media, Lepidozamia hopei and Bowenia spectabilis. The resort provided me with a list of all the plants to be found both in the resort and in the National Park. It didn't distinguish which was where, but I quickly established that neither of the plants I was looking for was planted out in the resort, so out into the park we went. There is a walking trail that goes around half of the island, and which you are not really allowed to leave. To cut a long story short, we didn't find any. This doesn't mean there weren't any. The list I was given was compiled from a variety of sources, one of which was the book "Confessions of a Beachcomer", written by EJ Banfield, who lived on the Island for 20 years at the start of the last century. Less restricted, he may have seen the plants on the Island at that time. Certainly none of the staff on the island that I was able to speak to had seen the plant. I hoped the next stop, in Palm Cove, would be more productive - as the Flecker Botantical Gardens in Cairns were nearby. We went along there one sunny morning for a wander amongst the small but spectacular gardens. For anyone living nearby who has not yet visited it, I heartily recommend that you pay a trip. The collection is particularly rich in cycads, and naturally we found both the local species we were looking for, as well as host of others, which I will not include here. While there were plenty of Cycas media planted out, there were only two Lepidozamia hopei that I saw, both growing a shady parts of the garden. Even though there was not much trunk, the leaves were impressively immense, and a deep luxuriant shiny green. There were far more Bowenia spectabilis, known locally as the zamia fern, dotted around the place though, all looking very well indeed. You can see why people love the leaves for ornamental use. They looked like they had been moulded out of malachite. None of the Bowenia planted out had cones, however, the specimen that they planted in the covered fernery is beginning to develop a cone. Sadly it was too dark to photograph as I had forgotten my flash, and without crawling through one of the beds, I couldn't distinguish what sex it was, although if I had to plunk for one, I'd say female. Flecker Botanical Gardens is situated just North of the City, a bit before the James Cook University turnoff. There is a "sunbus" route, which leaves from the marina, that can drop you off right next to the entrance. There is no entrance fee, but make a donation by buying lunch or something, or the self-guided walk brochure.
By this time, 2/3 of the way into my holiday, I was getting a little frustrated (as was the dear wife) that I hadn't yet seen a sniff of the plants in their actual habitat. Where do they actually grow? What conditions do they really like? I reckon that until you see plants in habitat, no matter how much you read you can't really grasp what it is actually like. Certainly as an inexperienced cycader trying to grow everything in pots in the same conditions (my conservatory in sunny London ?), being in situ was a real eye-opener.The final part of our holiday was to be spent in the Daintree world heritage area, a tract of rainforest reckoned to be 110 million years old and relatively pristine apart from a bit of logging for red cedar in the last century. This may well be unique, as Australia is relatively rare in that it is a sparsely populated yet developed country in the tropics, and as such has no space, social or wealth issues that particularly threaten rainforested areas elsewhere. Sure, this is a bit of a mass-generalisation, but to put it another way, the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area that runs along the North East coast of Australia is among the most protected environments of its kind in the world, despite the intense sugarcane agriculture found on the coastal plain and to some extent on the tablelands.
We were picked up from Palm Cove for the drive up North to the Daintree. As soon as we left the resort village on the James Cook Highway, we immediately began passing large colonies of Cycas media on the landward side of the road. At this point the road passes right next to the ocean - on the ocean side there were no cycads at all, as the habitat was mangrove and sandy beaches, and right on the other side of the road the environment is totally different - dry sclerophyll eucalypt/melaleuca forest, full of large Cycads with trunks partially blackened by bush fires.
 |
|
Cycas media, Road to Port Douglas, QLD |
So although the trunks were blackened, I am surmising that there hadn't been a fire there for quite some time. There was also an interesting specimen with split trunks. I was not able to check for seedlings as I didn't have the right clothing on, and like all gullible foreigners, I've been totally petrified by all the statistics regarding how many of the worlds most nasty snakes live in Australia. So I observed from the relative safety of the tarmac and with a 300mm lens. Anyway, I'm happy to report that Cycas media is not, for now, an endangered species. The dry forests gave way to cane fields, and then rainforest, and so we saw no more Cycas media after that point.
But rainforest meant what I was really here to see. Almost immediately, whilst walking along a path only a few yards from the hotel, I came across small specimens of Bowenia spectabilis, typically with a single leaf stalk only, but with bright green and shiny leaflets spreading from the five branches, arranged in perfect formation. They were literally everywhere, as far back from the path as I could see, again on sloped terrain. In fact the sloped terrain was a major characteristic of their habitat, and I don't think I saw one growing on flat ground the whole time I was there. We encountered bigger specimens just above the mangrove line between the Daintree river and the road leading to Daintree Village. Interestingly enough there were no plants that I could see on the other side of the road, totally the opposite to the Cycas media we had seen, which had been growing above the road but not below. Some of these plants had stalks as thick as my little finger, and stood 4 feet high, with numerous branches, and wide spreads. No cones here either, but the plants were flourishing. You do not often find this species in botanic institutions in the UK, and it is seldom available in nurseries, so it was a delight to see so many healthy plants all over the place.
 |
| Bowenia spectabilis, Daintree |
With another species ticked off it was time to try to find the Lepidozamia hopei in the wild. Nobody I spoke to knew of the name, despite living in the area, and when I described the cycad, I invariably got pointed towards date palms growing in the resort grounds. My chance came when we went on a bird-watching tour with a local guy, Del Richards. Fine Feather Tours operates out of the Mossman area, and you can go on a day trip that encompasses 7 different habitats and where you are almost certain to see around 90 species of birds. Coming from London where if you do happen to see a bird, it is either a pigeon, seagull, or sparrow, I was stunned by what we saw, and Del, who has been bird-watching for 40 years or more, was a most knowledgeable guide. And when I said I was looking for a tall cycad with huge glossy leaves he knew exactly what I meant and what's more, he knew of several locations on our itinerary where there were plants right next to the track. And he was dead right. The L. hopei were growing at the very fringe of the forest, amongst Licuala palms in some cases. It is hard to convey the sense of wonder when you come across truly ancient plants, a full five metres tall and that have been growing for probably ten times as long as you have been alive. Of the 4 mature plants we saw, the highlight was a 5 metre female about 10 feet from the road up on the Atherton tablelands in the vicinity of Mount Molloy. The plant had probably coned in the last 3 years, judging by the number of seedling that were growing around the base. It seemed such a shame that they were growing so near to the adult that they would be restricted by it in the years to come, but we didn't attempt to move them. There was another adult just opposite it, on the other side of the road, only about 3 metres tall, but nonetheless most impressive, but as no seedlings were present nearby we were unable to deduce the sex of the plant. These were isolated plants, and even exploring a little further into the forest we were unable to locate any more. But it was good to know that the species is reproducing even if plants appear to be quite scarce. Had we explored the region in a bit more depth, perhaps this brief assessment would change, but after all, we had to do some relaxing, and that was it as far as the cycads went, by order of the wife.
 |
|
Lepidozamia hopei, Atherton tableland |