Signs of struggle

Snow gums are now flowering in the Kosciuszko National Park for the first time in about five years. They have always been one of my favourite trees. I missed seeing them in flower on my visit there in mid-December. But I can’t complain because I did get to see the wildflowers also in bloom across the park, reportedly the best display in as many years because of unusually good rainfall in the preceding months. An incomparable treat.

The massed displays of wildflowers in the Australian Alps during the summer months are well-known and highly valued for their aesthetic appeal to park visitors, particularly from overseas. As well as being stunningly beautiful, the exquisite alpine meadows with their bogs, and sphagnum moss species, fens and sedges, heaths, and sod tussock grasslands provide habitats for the endangered mountain pygmy-possum (Burramys parvus) and the corroboree frog (Pseudophryne corroboree).

At about 1500m, the sclerophyll forest of the lower, drier slopes of the Great Divide gives way to a more open subalpine woodland of twisted snow gums. These trees survive to about 1830m in elevation where they surrender to the dwarf alpine vegetation characteristic of the alpine meadows that cover the very crest of the Great Divide.

In the northern end of Kosciuszko National Park much of this woodland community has been burnt in recent decades and extensive areas of dead snow gum stems now dominate the subalpine landscapes of the park.

The contorted forms of ancient snow gums provide a striking contrast to the stands of severely upright Alpine Ash and also to the mosaic of heaths, herbs and grasses that grow in the numerous frost hollows and on the exposed mountain tops and ridgelines.

Roger Deakin in his last book, Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees says that it is through trees that we hear and see wind.

“Woods are the subconscious of the landscape. They have become the guardians of our dreams of greenwood liberty, of our wildwood, feral, childhood selves. The Chinese count wood as the fifth element and Jung considered trees an archetype. They signal changes in the natural world. They are our barometers of the weather and the changing seasons.”

If ever a tree were, as Deakin claims, “a river of sap: through roots that wave about like sea anemones” it is the snow gum.

The bark of snow gums (Eucalyptus pauciflora) is smooth and white, with grey strips, but may turn shades of red or olive-green.

But it is their twisted shapes that makes you stand in awe and feel humbled, moved, and inspired by their resilience and determination to survive and thrive. No matter what.

The Snow Gum
Eucalyptus Pauciflora Niphophila

by Ian M Johnstone

Its tortured look reminds us
of a bonsai written large.
Its uniform of cream-green-grey
could teach us camouflage.
In its trunk there’s signs of struggle,
as if distorted by some pain,
Like legs bent down to lift a weight,
it’s strong to take the strain.
It twists and casts dead branches,
it compromises and survives.
Rugged beauty’s forced upon it,
and we see in it, our lives.