White Beech: The Rainforest Years

  In the same show in 1865 Hill also presented ‘four specimens of the coral tree, which has a large drooping-red flower, shaped something like a fuchsia’. The genus, which was named Erythrina by Linnaeus in 1753 with the annotation ‘corallodendron’, has a Gondwanan distribution. Australia has a number of native species, but the specimens shown by Hill were almost certainly examples of the South American Cock’s Spur Coral Tree, Erythrina crista-galli, the national flower of Argentina and Paraguay. Around the turn of the century a now forgotten plant breeder produced a new hybrid Erythrina and presented it to the Brisbane Botanical Garden, where it grows to this day. Its parentage is unknown, but it is thought to be a hybrid of the American E. coralloides and the African E. lysistemon. It was not until the 1960s that a botanist called William Sykes, who saw the same Coral Tree growing all over New Zealand, identified it as a hybrid cultivar, hence its current name Erythrina x sykesii. Though the hybrid does not set fertile seed, it has now joined E. crista-galli as a serious weed of rainforest in Australia because, even after it has been poisoned and is apparently dead, the fallen branches are capable of rooting and regenerating. Both Coral Trees are beloved of suburban gardeners for the crowded hands of bright red flowers that appear before the thick, dark, leathery leaves. It took us five years to eliminate them from the CCRRS rainforest.

  The latest count by Tony Bean of the Queensland Herbarium yields five native Erythrina species, which the early nurserymen might have collected and improved. The local version of E. vespertilio has flowers of burnt orange shading to espresso brown-black at the base. Another local species, now called E. numerosa (it was E. sp. Croftby), is peach-pink, with its protruding anthers stained rose-madder. You will see blood-red Coral Trees in their millions in north-east New South Wales and south-east Queensland; you are most unlikely to see any of these slower-growing and more elegant natives.

  The pattern was early set: Australian nurserymen would not bother to propagate or improve local species; instead they would import seed and specimens of exotic species. It’s hard to believe that the same settlers who tore out, knocked down and burnt the hundreds of species of trees that grew naturally in south-east Queensland were happy to spend proper money on half-a-dozen species of exotic trees to plant around their houses. Anyone who didn’t plant a Coral Tree and a Jacaranda in the front garden was deemed insensible to beauty.

  Native groundcovers were weeds by definition; they too were uprooted and burnt, to be replaced by long avenues of Agapanthus. Attempts to prevent the sale of Agapanthus varieties in Australia have been strongly resisted by the horticultural industry. Australian gardens are still full of them, as well as thousands of other exotics many of which have serious weed potential. Various Heliotropes, Gladioli, daisies, lilies, Oxalis, Honeysuckles, gingers, Verbenas, Vincas, Gazanias, Morning Glories, Moth Vine, Mother-in-law’s Tongue and Watsonias are declared weeds already, and there are more where those came from. The situation was summarised in 2005 for the World Wildlife Fund by CSIRO botanists:

  The gardening industry is by far the largest importer of introduced plant species, being the source for the introduction of 25,360 or 94% of all new plant species into Australia. Garden plant introductions are also the dominant source of new naturalised plants and weeds in Australia. Of the 2,779 introduced plant species now known to be established in the Australian environment, 1,831 (or 66%) are escaped garden plant species. (Groves et al., 7)

  Not so long ago, I was as insensitive to the beauty of Australian native vegetation as anyone else. As a child I had longed for the flowers that starred the Alpine meadows where Heidi grew up, for Edelweiss and gentians and daisies. In coastal Victoria the only daisies I had to make chains with were not silver-white with golden centres, but dull yellow with dirty grey disc florets; they were Capeweed, Arctotheca calendula, from South Africa. I used to climb up into the tea-trees in the beachside park and sit there with yellow Capeweed flowers wound round my head, pretending to be Ophelia.

  I studied European wildflowers for years before I paid any attention to the wildflowers of the great south land. Recognition of the beauty and subtle symmetry of natural plant associations in Europe prepared me for more sensitive observation of Australian species. If I look for a Eureka moment it seems to be a TV programme on Australian flora presented by David Bellamy. Nobody had ever explained to me why Australian flowers were the way they were, and how fascinating their difference was. What Bellamy projected as he explained the structure of all kinds of Australian flowers, from the spectacular to the insignificant, was his wonder and intellectual excitement. By the time the credits rolled I had stopped wishing Australian blooms were like flowers in manuscript illumination and Dutch painting and I was ready to give them my full attention. I didn’t fall in love with native Australian vegetation until I was middle-aged, and then I fell hard, as middle-aged women do.

  As the road crossed the river and followed its left bank high into the hills, I began to notice that, though the canopy trees in the native woodland were the usual, the grassy understorey had been replaced by wattles and geebungs. As the road wound higher the forest changed again. Dark green saplings had begun to colonise the forest floor. The emergents changed; I was now looking at big specimens of Brush Box, Flooded Gum, Tallowwood and Turpentine. Along the river I could see different River She-oaks and red Callistemons. We passed an almost full-grown Lilly pilly, and then I understood. The eucalypts I was looking at were not virgin forest but regrowth. Before white settlement this part of the valley must have been clothed in rainforest. Ever since it was cleared, it has been colonised by pioneer myrtaceous species that grow much faster than the original vegetation, which was and is still struggling to reclaim its territory. The struggle is hopeless, because the sclerophylls regularly burn, either spontaneously or because of deliberate backburning. They survive the conflagration, but the rainforest saplings do not. What I was seeing was a practical demonstration of how it was that the rainforest that once clothed Australia was corralled and driven back by the collaboration of eucalypts and fire, until it was no more than a chain of remnants down the east coast of the continent. What I didn’t know then and could hardly have imagined was that when rare rainforest trees were removed from state forests, they were replaced by fast-growing eucalypts, as a matter of government policy.

  There was not much to like about the regrowth forest; in the cleared areas the cattle looked hot and cross and the horses on the hobby farms were wearing masks and capes to protect them from the stinging flies. The road wound higher. The spectacular views of the scarps of Springbrook Plateau to our left and Lamington Plateau to our right were closed out as the valley narrowed. The road climbed out of the river valley, crossing a rocky creek making its way to the Nerang. The name on the sign was Cave Creek.

  We passed a half-rotten house buried in unkempt vegetation and surrounded by parked cars.

  ‘What goes on there?’

  ‘Meditation, I think. The bloke does a roaring trade. Something to do with anagrams.’

  ‘Holy shit.’

  We turned left into the entrance of the Natural Arch section of the Springbrook National Park and everything changed. Massive watervines curtained the road. Cordylines and Lomandras bordered the tarmac. Huge pea pods and strings of nuts hung in the trees. Tree ferns and palms patterned the understorey. A black Brush-turkey, with bald red head, chrome-yellow cravat and a tail attached vertically instead of horizontally, fled at our approach. The narrow road divided and then turned into a car park, which was full of people, most of them in bathers. A sign said ‘Thieves are active in this car park. Do not leave valuables in the car’. The scatter of glass fragments on the tarmac told its own story. Most of the people I saw were carrying nothing but beach towels and water bottles.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘They’ve come to see the Natural Arch.’

  ‘A rock formation,’ I scoffed. ‘Australians are the only people in the world who will drive for hundreds of ks just to
see a funny-looking rock.’

  ‘This is a pretty special rock,’ said Jane-Frances. ‘The creek has worn a hole in a massive rock-ledge and falls through into a cave that’s been carved out by water action underneath. The formation used to be called Natural Bridge, like the township, but they decided that too many people were getting hurt when they tried to cross over it. So they changed the name to Natural Arch, and tried to fence it off. Visitors aren’t supposed to swim there either, because it’s very dangerous, but most people do. People who come in the daytime that is. A whole bunch of tourists come at night, to see the glow-worms. Asians mostly.’

  Twenty-four-hour tourism. So much for tranquillity. And that’s without the accidents. For years Natural Bridge was the place where Surf Lifesavers came to celebrate the completion of their training by jumping through the hole in the cave roof. Others did not even have their excuse, having merely downed one stubby too many. In 2005 a British tourist dived into the pool and didn’t surface. The downward force of the waterfall had pushed him under a rock-shelf. It was not until the next day that rescuers succeeded in recovering his body. An earlier visitor who slipped when cavorting on the bridge was so badly injured that he remains paralysed. Now signs warn visitors that swimming in the creek will incur a heavy fine. As the park has too few staff even to keep an eye on the parked vehicles, the signs are ignored.

  We drove to the end of the car park, past the toilets and the information kiosk, and bore left, where a sign said ‘Pedestrian access only’. We kept driving, athwart a steep slope, between rainforest on the upper side and a dense stand of Hoop Pines on the lower, through an open gate, and several acres of Lantana.

  ‘This is it,’ said Ken, as we crossed a concrete causeway over a creek full of Mist Weed and Busy Lizzie. I could see Bird’s Nest Ferns and Staghorns hanging in the trees. We kept going under the trees, past a single-storey house sagging on slanting piles to a gate and open fields. Beyond stood rather surprised cattle, hock-deep in lush Kikuyu Grass. When we opened the gate, they retreated to a safe distance and stood watching and ruminating. Ken pulled up short of the main house, just in case the tenants were home. A utility truck was parked under a massive Jacaranda.

  Once out of the car I could see that the property nestled within a half-hoop of bare weathered scarps cropping out above the forest that foamed up in deep green waves from the cleared area where we found ourselves. Even though it was the middle of the day and the sun stood directly overhead, bleaching out colour and turning shadows black, the effect was spectacular. We walked past the house and on, past muster yards and a milking parlour and a hay shed, up the main track, past Blackwoods and Silky Oaks and other trees whose names I didn’t know. Ken pointed out the course of the creek below us, and the tributaries coming down from above. I felt blank. Bewildered. Rainforest. I had never thought of rainforest. It was hot, but not dry hot like the desert, sticky hot.

  ‘A hundred and fifty acres,’ Ken was saying. ‘We bought it for my mother, so she’d have something for her retirement. She’s worked all her life in the public health service, so she’s not got much to retire on. We were hoping we could make money from this place, you know, give her some extra income, but in the end we’ve just got to get the capital back out of it. She needs the cash. It’s been on the market for a while, but there’s been no interest whatsoever.’

  ‘How much d’you want for it?’

  ‘I won’t bullshit you,’ he said. ‘We’d settle for half a million. Mum’s not too well. I feel as if we’re running out of time.’

  It was the same old story. The investment that wasn’t. They had tried just about everything. It was probably a mercy ultimately that they hadn’t had the capital to develop the property. Any money they’d spent on it would have been lost.

  Ken went on. ‘You can’t get anywhere with a property this size unless you live on it. You don’t make enough to afford wages, to begin with. If you live here, and you work from first light to last, you might break even – if you’re lucky. Otherwise you’re in hock to the bank and anything you make they take in interest. Doesn’t seem right, them making more money out of lending you money than you do for doing the work.

  ‘We spent a bit of money getting someone to draw up a plan for an eco-tourist development, and we got outline planning permission for it too, but we couldn’t find a buyer and the permission lapsed.’

  Ken fished in his windcheater and brought out a newspaper clipping. The sale advertisement for the property, dated two years before. The asking price was a million.

  ‘We’d have taken less, but we never even got an offer. Not a single one.’

  I said nothing. I felt nothing, beyond a twinge of embarrassment. I was rehearsing how to tell these two good people that, after all their trouble, I wasn’t interested either. Ken thought it might be nice to walk down to the creek. He walked across a paddock and into a stand of rainforest. I stepped after him into the forest twilight. Something invisible clawed at my cheek and hung on. I tried to pluck it off without ripping the skin, only to be snared by the elbow.

  ‘Lawyer Vine,’ said Ken. ‘There’s a lot of it in here.’

  There was too. I backed off and looked at the plant carefully. It was a scrambling palm, that hoisted its great snaky canes up into the trees by dint of snagging them with fine backward-hooked whips set opposite each compound leaf. I peeled off the one that had latched onto my cheek and felt blood sliding after. The growing ends and leaf nodes of the canes were trimmed with fringes of fine brown spines; the leaf edges and stalks were spiny too. I had no stick to hold the Lawyer Vine back with, and there was no way of pushing through it.

  Ken looked back and saw me twisting and turning to find a way through. ‘Look out!’ he yelled. ‘See that thing on your left there? No, don’t touch it!’

  I didn’t. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think,’ said Ken, ‘it’s a Shiny Stinger. I’m never really sure exactly what they look like. If there’s a Shiny Stinger, there’s usually an ordinary one not too far off. See.’

  He pointed his stick over my shoulder towards a velvety apple-green sapling. ‘That’s a Stinger.’

  This was definitely not my cup of tea, a closed forest, steep, rocky ground, and malicious plantlife to boot. And we hadn’t even got to the snakes and spiders yet. Ahead of me Ken was in trouble. The terrain had gradually degenerated until it was nothing but a tumble of rocks, and still no sign of the creek, which we could hear gurgling somewhere underneath. Clambering down into the gully would be asking for trouble.

  ‘I thought there was a path here,’ said Ken, ‘but there isn’t, obviously.’

  We turned tail and walked back through the forest. The curious cattle were waiting for us at the edge.

  ‘Whose beasts are these?’

  ‘Not ours. We let a neighbour keep them here in return for a bit of spraying.’

  ‘What’s to spray?’

  He gestured, ‘Fireweed, Wild Cotton, Mist Weed, Crofton Weed, Castor Oil Plant, thistles. You have to have the cattle regardless, because you need them to keep the grass down. It’s dangerous having the grass too high, especially near the house.’

  ‘Snakes.’

  Great.

  Jane-Frances suggested that we go to Angela’s for lunch. Angela’s was a colonial-style pseudo-farmhouse with a curving drive bordered with Agapanthus, shaded by the usual partnership of Coral Trees and Jacarandas. According to her signage, Angela sold hot pies in inverted commas, snacks and craft. Jane-Frances and Ken introduced me as ‘Germaine’. ‘I hope you’re nothing to do with that bloody Germaine Greer,’ said Angela, as she led us between shelves laden with hand-made forgettabilia.

  On the ride back to Logan I didn’t say anything about the property. We talked about other things. I said I’d be in touch. On impulse, as I was passing the hire-car desk in the hotel lobby, I decided to rent a car and drive to Sydney instead of flying. Then I rang a resort I had noticed on the way up from Nerang and booked accommodation. I checked
out of the hotel, wheeled the rental car out onto the highway and raced back the way I had come. If I had calculated correctly, I would be back at Natural Arch before sunset. I felt that I owed it to the Piaggios to give their property another chance. In the hot middle of the day the Australian bush is silent; to understand the place I had to see it when it was coming alive, when the indigo mists well up from the gullies.

  I parked the car under the Jacarandas, and walked up the track, between tall stands of feral Verbena and Wild Cotton. The cooling air was full of what I knew from my time in Oklahoma as Monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus, known better in Australia as Wanderers, some copulating in mid-air. The story of their presence here was partly known to me; the first Monarch butterflies appeared in Queensland in 1870 or so, and the belief is that they migrated there from northern Brazil under their own wing-power. However they pupate on Wild Cotton, Gomphocarpus fruticosus, which is also their larval food plant, and it would seem more likely that they and it were imported together – if only the Gomphocarpus, sometimes called Cape Cotton, were not indigenous to South Africa. Wild Cotton had spread ‘rapidly in different parts of the colony’ by 1856 (SMH, 26 November). A related plant, Asclepias curassavica, is also called Wild Cotton and I could see it too growing in the tangle alongside the track. In 1879 it was already ‘common around Brisbane, and unfortunately, throughout the colony.’ (Q, 22 November)