Plant identification

“Is it on the List?”

Hermann Beckler collected 120 different species of plants around Menindee. It is that list that the Beckler Botanical Bounty Project is using. So correct identification is very important!

The type of habitat where we were searching for our plants

I am a gardener, not a botanist. I find it hard to hold the Latin names in my head. I have no idea of many of the botanical plant terms. So identifying plants was a huge learning curve for me — and I am still only a little way on that curve!

We have been so lucky to have had the support of a botanist whose work takes him regularly to Kinchega National Park.  As you walk with him he points to plants and says, “That’s a so and so (fill in Latin plant name here), that’s a such and such (add different Latin name). That one over there is on Beckler’s list, this one isn’t.” So he was able to help sort plants in the field. That was a massive help.

Looking for the right plants

However much we would have liked it, he couldn’t always be with us. And sometimes he was unsure. So then it was back to the reference books.

I am working on plants from the genus Cullen. This year I was working on a species Cullen discolor. But I had to be sure that my identification was correct.

Cullen discolor

It is described as ‘a perennial herb with stems prostrate to 1.5 metres’. Okay, I get those terms. Then the description said ‘tomentose to hispid’. These I discover are descriptions of hairiness. Its leaves are pinnately 3 foliate, narrow to broad, lanceolate to elliptic and less pubescent on the upper surface. The margins are toothed. There are petioles and stipules, peduncles and calyxes — and I never got to dissect the flower, which has more specialised terminology!

Reference material

So, having nutted my way through the key, and gone to botanical dictionaries and other more knowledgeable people, I am confident that this is Cullen discolor.

“Perennial herb with stems prostrate to 1.5 metres.”

At least I knew that this Cullen was ‘on the list’. Some artists went through the identification process, only to find it was one that Beckler hadn’t collected. Then it was out into the bush again to repeat the process.

Hermann Beckler, botanical art and Menindee

Back in 1860 Hermann Beckler collected plant specimens during the Burke and Wills Expedition. (For posts about that check here and here.) Those specimens ended up in the Herbarium in Victoria. Now zoom forward 150 years to 2010, the 150th Anniversary of the Expedition.

There were a number of events and celebrations that year to mark the event. Mali Moir, respected and very talented botanic artist devised a botanic art project. After discussing her idea with some others the Beckler Botanical Bounty was begun. The idea was to go to Menindee, collect and press specimens of the same species that Beckler had collected. These specimens would sit alongside Beckler’s in the Herbarium. However, Mali’s truly fabulous inspiration was that each specimen would be painted. There is a list of 120 taxa collected in 1860 within 20km of Menindee. This list was the basis of our work.

So in 2010 the first group went to Menindee and began the process. I went in 2011 and 2012, and would love to be there again in 2013!

The Menindee post office

The mains street of Menindee

The Maiden Hotel

The broad process is that we identify the plant, collect it (with the correct permits, of course), press it and then start the painting. But things are not always that easy! Correctly identifying a plant can involve time, patience and some very thick reference books! Then there is a very good chance that it is not on Beckler’s list, so it is back outside again!

Some of the reference material we use for identification.

Collected specimens, ready to be pressed and stored

After the specimen is collected and pressed, the drawing and painting begins. If you are interested in finding out how individual artists go about their work you can follow the link to our Beckler’s Botanical Bounty Blog.

East to Menindee

I want to leave the Flinders Ranges now and head almost due east for about 500 km, to Menindee. It is a small town, about an hour south-east of Broken Hill, on the Darling River and right on the edge of the Menindee Lakes system and Kinchega National Park. It is big sky country — it is so flat that the sky arches from horizon to horizon. And it is red dirt country, semi-arid. So, why there?

Well, it is fascinating. The lakes and the river attract birds from far away. The habitats away from the water are full of secret treasures — plants, insects, reptiles. (Fortunately I didn’t see any snakes, but I know they are there.) Secret because driving past in the car it all looks like boring saltbush. But stop and investigate and a world opens up.

Once you start to explore you can see the diversity, and begin to appreciate how plants can survive in such harsh environments.

But also because it is an area that features in the Burke and Wills story. For Australians those names are legendary. For others I will explain in the next few posts who they were and why their story sent me and other botanical artists to Menindee. For now, enjoy some of the beauty of Copi Hollow, and the caravan park where we stayed.

We saw this view of the lake, Copi Hollow, every time we went outside the caravan.

Looking back to the caravan park, evening light

The beautiful evening light

Leaving the Flinders Ranges

I am going to leave blogging about the Flinders Ranges for awhile. Time to move east to Menindee and Kinchega National Park. So, one last photo……

Path along a ridge, where you were definitely walking on the bones of the Earth. (I think the white plant is Silver mulla mulla.)

…..and a link to a blog that has beautiful photos of the Ranges.

http://thesentimentalbloke.com/2012/10/moorilah-moon/

I came across Peter McDonald’s stunning photos in the Prairie Hotel, Parachilna — aerial photos of Lake Eyre in flood, taken from such an altitude that they became abstracts. Beautiful…..

Travel journal

Like most people I collect things as I travel. I have inherited my Mum’s passion for brochures but I also add my own treasures from the natural world — feathers and shells and seed pods and flowers (often photos, because I know I can’t pick native plants). Then there are the memories and the information. On past travels I have kept written journals. However, over this year I have become more fascinated with pictorial journals, looking at how other artists create their keepsakes. This time I decided to record this journey to Menindee and the Flinders Ranges differently.

I have used a Daler-Rowney book. Its paper is 150 gsm, and a good quality cartridge which took watercolour washes quite well. It is 27 by 22 cm and is landscape. Although it is bound and not spiral, I really like how it opens flat. I have been able to work comfortably across the double pages.

I had so much fun at night  working on this journal. (No TV in the caravan!) I needed to think about the layout, how to make it visually interesting, what I wanted to record, as well as making each page cohesive.

I would love to know how you record your special memories. Why don’t you leave me a comment?

Emus in the Flinders Ranges

EMUS

There are so many emus across the more arid areas we travelled through — from Menindee, out of Broken Hill, to the Flinders Ranges, including this one at the very aptly named Emu Creek, Kinchega National Park.

This photo is my favourite though. We were ambling along the Brachina Gorge track and came across this adult and chicks. They just sauntered up the road, and then up the bank. The adult, a male, waited until all the chicks had scrambled up the bank before he moved them on.

It is a male because male emus not only do most of the incubation, but then rear the chicks for the next 6 months. They will usually have a number of young to look after, and  have been known to take orphaned and abandoned chicks into their care too. Someone at the caravan park had a photo that showed one adult with 24 chicks!

The yellow footed rock wallaby in the Flinders Ranges

YELLOW FOOTED ROCK WALLABY, or ANDU

Seeing the yellow footed rock wallaby was one of the highlights of my stay in the Flinders Ranges. These little marsupials are also known by their Adnyamathanha name, Andu. A colony of them live in the Brachina Gorge and if you are quiet and observant you can see them on a rock scree.

They are shy and very well camouflaged. Can you spot the 2 andu in this photo?

Before white people came to the area they used to be very common but their status now is vulnerable. They were hunted for their skins and to cut down on competition for the grazing sheep brought in by pastoralists.

As well, their populations have been decimated by foxes and feral cats.

The andu, as marsupials, carry their joeys in pouches. As the joey grows it becomes more difficult for the mother to jump from rock to rock. So the joeys are left in rock crevices while the mother forages. A great idea when there was no real danger from bigger predators. However foxes and cats changed that. Instead of being a safe creche, the crevice made the joey easy pickings. Now, the National Park has established programmes to help protect them.

This andu came out after the other photographers had gone, and posed just for me!

And then bounded away!

Sacred Gorge in the Flinders Ranges

The Sacred Gorge is another stunning gorge in the Flinders Ranges. You walk (clamber at times!) up the creek bed, looking at the marvellous rock formations. This makes it more intimate than Brachina Gorge, which is a drive, not a walk.

The other thrill in this gorge is the Aboriginal art that has been carved into the rock. It is not always obvious, which makes it even more special. The Adnyamathanha people believe that the art was created in the Dreamtime. Given the beauty and age of this serene place, that seems quite possible.