Plant of the Month.

The Examiner newspaper and their garden scribe Les Hodge have developed a “Native Plant of the Month” which appears in Les’ garden page in the Saturday Examiner prior to our meeting on the third Tuesday each month. The article features a different native plant’ botanical details and is illustrated with a large coloured photo of the plant selected. It creates a lot of interest in plants that otherwise would not be so well known. On Les’ page he also gives our group invaluable publicity about our meeting the following Tuesday.
These are some of the Plant of the Month articles.

NATIVE PLANT OF THE MONTH FOR JANUARY 2010    DELIGHTFUL DAISIES What is the common link between the following: sunflowers, lettuce, chrysanthemum, dahlia and artichoke? If you said they are all members of the daisy family then you are right. This huge family, with the scientific name Asteraceae, contains something like 20000 species worldwide, in about 1000 genera and includes many species of economic importance (and some of the worst weeds). The former family name, “Compositae”, provided a clue to the characteristic feature of these plants, which is that all of them have composite flower heads. What we think of  as the flower is actually a cluster of tiny flowers (known as florettes) in some species only a small number but in others, such as the cultivated sunflower, hundreds of florettes. You can see the individual florettes if you use a magnifying glass or microscope. Each of the tiny florettes produces its own seed which is often attached to a feathery pappus which everyone knows as thistle down (see insert in photo). The pappus along with the attached seed is capable of travelling long distances when a wind is blowing, which explains why many members of this family can spread so quickly. In Tasmania there are dozens of native members of this family, ranging from quite large trees to tiny herbs. In between these extremes there are medium size shrubs and several beautiful  species which would be described as paper daisies. The flower heads of these paper daisies range in size from just under a centimetre in diameter to about 4cm diameter. Their colours in the Tasmanian species are white or golden yellow but many of the buds are also attractively coloured e.g. pink or orange. Paper daisies are generally very hardy, as indicated by the fact that large colonies of some native species survive along our roadsides, flowering for long periods in spring and summer in some very harsh environments. Some species can be induced to flower twice in one year by cutting them back after the first flowering is completed. Propagation is easy from seed – just collect the thistle down before it flies away, making sure that the seeds are still attached. By buying just a few plants from a nursery  and propagating from these you can have a wonderful  display within a couple of years. (The species shown in the photo is Xerochrysum bracteatum or golden everlasting which has flower heads up to about 4cm across. The inset shows the feathery pappus with the seed attached below it.)
NATIVE PLANT OF THE MONTH FOR FEBRUARY  2010   NATIVE HOP BUSHES Native plants formed much of the diet of aboriginal people before white settlement. Early European explorers and settlers often sought to supplement an inadequate or boring diet by experimenting with native plants or by following the example of the local aborigines. The leaves of many plants have been used as “greens”, replacing spinach or silver beet and the fruit and leaves of many species have provided nourishment and flavour. The genus  Dodonaea has the common name, hop bushes, because the fruit of some species have been used in place of hops in beer- making.  The fruit also contain chemicals called saponins which are effective surfactants and the fruit have been used in place of soap, hence the name of the family to which the genus belongs is Sapindaceae which literally means “Indian soap”. The family contains many species of commercial significance including lychees and rambutans.  In Tasmania we have two native species of hop bush one of which, Dodonaea filiformis (fineleaf hopbush)  is endemic to Tasmania while the other, D. Viscosa (broadleaf hopbush) is widespread in temperate regions of the world.  Both Tasmanian species are excellent garden plants, hardy and tolerant of a wide range of conditions although good drainage and at least part sun are necessary. D. filiformis is a shrub to about 3m tall while D. Viscosa  grows to about 5m in height and could be described as a small tree. The flowers of hopbushes are fairly insignificant with the male and female flowers growing on separate plants. The three-winged  fruit, which are green initially, turn quite a bright orange-red as they mature and from a distance it looks as though the plant is covered in flowers. Remember that fruit will occur only on female trees. The foliage of both Tasmanian species is attractive and plants of both species are fairly slender and  well shaped. An attractive purple-leaved form of D. Viscosa, often referred to as D.v. var purpurea is available. Hop bushes can be propagated easily from cuttings and some species can be grown