Wildflowers Australian Alps December 07

The high country of the Australian Alps was traditionally occupied by two Aboriginal groups: the Walgal and the Ngarigo. Although the Aboriginal history of the Kosciuszko region is poorly known, the ceremonial feasts held to coincide with the summer arrival of Bogong moths have been well-documented by early European travellers.

In contrast, the early European use of the Alps is particularly well documented. Always on the look out for new pastures, graziers first moved into the high country with their stock in the 1830s. The alpine herbfields became staple summer pastures. Naturally, this had severe impacts on the alpine biota. Since 1958 when grazing on Kosciuszko was discontinued a fascinating recovery of the flora has occurred.

A feature that never fails to amaze summer visitor is the plants’ delicacy of appearance combined with their ability to withstand extreme exigencies of the climate without fading or tearing. Many of these wildflowers look as though the merest breath of wind or lightest touch would mar their delicate beauty, yet they stand unsullied through days of bitterly cold strong winds and fierce sun. Fleeting in their display they are something to be cherished for they are unique as well as beautiful and once lost they will be gone for ever.

Today, the most serious and insidious threat to the alpine biota comes from climate change.

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.