admin – Page 19 – Paluma – our village in the mist

Paluma After Dark – fluorescent liverworts and glow worms.

The second “Paluma After Dark” night walk is scheduled for this Saturday at 7pm, starting at Potters Park (27 Lennox Cr).

In the weeks since the inaugural walk in March, there have been a number of unofficial night walks around the village that has uncovered some additional features that can be easily seen along Lennox Cr or the H-track. The most spectacular is the discovery of brilliant green fluorescent liverworts along the H-track. These small moss-like plants are not normally visible in the dark, but suddenly glow electric blue when illuminated with UV light. On the H-track, these liverworts can cover entire logs, mostly as an understory plant beneath and between moss and other non-fluorescing liverworts. Andi Cairns, who is a local expert on liverworts organized a dedicated collecting trip with me and Will Cairns as collectors (the most conspicuously fluorescing logs were just out of wheelchair access range for Andi.) Andi has identified the species as Bazzania vittata.

A rotten log on the H-track. Top left: Illuminated by normal torchlight. Top Right: Illuminated with a UV torch. Bottom: Using both torches to show how the fluorescent species is a relatively inconspicuous component of the surface of the log, which is dominated by a moss and a larger liverwort, Photos by Will Cairns.

After consulting her network of experts from other states and countries it appears that this phenomenon is a recently discovered property of just a few species. And her posts and pictures have motivated other bryologists to go out with UV torches to see what they can find! There is active speculation (but no firm conclusions) on what adaptive advantage this fluorescence confers on the liverwort. It is possible that it provides some protection against UV damage as the fluorescence serves to absorb potentially harmful UV and re-emit it as safe visible light, but there may be other possible explanations.

Another log glowing brightly under UV illumination. Left: under normal torch light. Right: Illuminated with UV torch only. Photos by Jamie Oliver

I have been out on 4 occasions over the last month and have seen these glowing liverworts each time, so I am pretty sure they will be visible during our next Paluma After Dark walk this Saturday.

The other discovery (at least for me personally) is that there is a small colony of glow worms living on a low vertical earth cutting just before the first left-hand bend in the crescent (starting from Potters Park). Several residents have mentioned to me that they have seen glow worms in the past around Paluma, but it’s great to find some right along the road near my house. unlike the fluorescent liverworts, glow worms are bioluminescent and emit light during the nighttime to attract small insects that they feed on. Glow worms are actually the larval phase of a small fly (several species of fungus gnat) belonging to 3 genera. In Australia & NZ there are nine species belonging to the genus Arachnocampa. Here in Queensland the predominant and endemic species is Arachnocampa tropica, which can be found throughout the wet tropics. The larvae of all glow worms produce a series of horizontal and vertical threads with viscous droplets that act as a fly trap for small insects. The larvae live and grow for about 6-11 months while the adult is very short-lived.

*Left: No torch lighting-Close up of the luminous larvae (top centre) and adjacent threads and droplets . Right: the entire trap illuminated by torchlight with larva top centre. Photos by Jamie Oliver*

I will certainly ensure that we check these out as well during our next night walk.

Text by Jamie Oliver, photos as indicated

The next Paluma After Dark walk will be at 7 pm, Saturday, April 23, at Potters Park (27 Lennox Cr). Bring a head torch and a UV torch if you have one. I will have several UV torches to share.

Notice of Annual General Meeting

Members (and prospective members) are advised that the Annual General Meeting of the Paluma & District Community Association Inc. will be held on:

Saturday, April 23, 2022, at 12pm for a BBQ lunch followed by the AGM at 1pm in the Community Hall

Nominations are open for all Executive Committee positions. Nominations should be forwarded to any member of the Executive Committee or by email to PalumaPDCA@gmailcom. Please use the nomination forms, which can be downloaded here.

Positions are:

President,
1 or 2 Vice-Presidents
Secretary
Treasurer
General Committee members (numbers flexible)

Members are reminded that Annual Subscriptions are now due and should be paid prior to the commencement of the AGM. Membership is $45.00 Please use the subscription form here to submit your dues. New members are more than welcome and should use the same form.

Please note that you must be a PDCA member to nominate someone to the Committee or vote for any Committee member.

The AGM will be followed immediately by a normal General Meeting with the new Committee.

AGM AGENDA

Opening – circulation of attendance sheet
Apologies
Minutes of previous AGM April 24th, 2021
President’s Report
Treasurer’s report
Election of Officers for 2021-2022
Election of Auditor for 2021-2022
Close of Annual General Meeting

Normal General Meeting Agenda

Open General Meeting
Proposed Events/Fund-raising for the coming year
Any other business
Close of General Meeting

What’s Blooming in Paluma – Bromeliads

Over the last month or so, one of the consistently flowering plants in my garden, as well as other gardens in the village has been bromeliads.

Broms belong to the family Bromeliacea which includes “air plants” in the genus Tillandsia. They come in an amazing range of colours (on both the flowers and leaves) and flower shapes. They can grow anywhere from full sun to deep shade and in wet and dry habitats.

In Paluma they are great plants for “mature” gardens with a full shady canopy that restricts the number of brightly flowering plants that can grow in the gloom. Currently one of my favourite broms is blooming throughout the village. Bilbergia pyramidalis, like most bromeliads, comes from South America. Its common names (flaming torch and foolproof plant) are certainly apt. It has a stunning large red and purple flower and it tends (at least in my garden to bloom during only a short few days in March when the effect in mass plantings is quite spectacular.

This year the blooming period seems to be less synchronous and more prolonged, perhaps due to the lack of a “proper” wet season.

This species grows prolifically in semi-shaded to fully shaded areas and it is dead-easy (fool proof) to grow and propagate. I have created a living boundary “fence” along one side of my garden by heaping up my endless supply of branch timings and then just tossing B. pyramidalis onto the top of the pile. Three to six months later it formed a living cover and a spectacle of colour once a year thereafter.

A living and flowering border fence

Another stunning relative of the bromeliad that has just finished flowering is the Pink quill (Tillandsia cyanea).

Tillandsias are also called air plants since they can grow epiphytically on tree trunks or rocks without any soil. T. cyanea is different in that it prefers to grow in a small pot of well drained soil. It produces 2-4 “pups” each year so it doesn’t take long to get a row of these delightful plants lined up on a ledge in your garden (see the header for this post).

Some of the other broms that have been flowering, or showing off their colours are also shown below, together with any names I have been able to attribute to them (this is still a work in progress). If you are interested in long-lived flowers then Guzmania conifer and Achmea fasciata keep their blooms for up to 6 months or more!

Text and photos by Jamie Oliver

A quiet night, with a luminous discovery

The inaugural Paluma After Dark walk around the Village occurred after several hot and dry days and my expectations for sighting of larger vertebrates were not high. There was a group of 5 including Julie Bligh, Juanita and two day-visitors (Russel and Joel) from Townsville who decided to delay their return in order to join us. Our brief walk took us out along the Witt’s Lookout track for ~100m and then to McClelland’s Lookout and the lower car park before returning to Potters Park via Lennox crescent.

There was plenty of eyeshine to be seen reflecting back from our torches, but they were almost exclusively from small wolf spiders roaming the ground in search of prey, and various moths resting on leaves. There were no frogs calling and only a few crickets faintly chirping. We were buzzed by several small insectivorous bats swooping past the street light at the back of Lennox Cr, but they were too fast-moving to identify.

Andi Cairns made a suggestion in the post for this event that we should bring UV lights to look out for fluorescent lichen, and Juanita was able to scrounge up 4 small lights from COVID RAT tests we have purchased. These were great fun to use on leaves and trunks, revealing distinctive red colours to the undersurfaces of some leaves and complex multicoloured patterns on trunks. No distinctly fluorescent lichens were found, but the highlight of the night came when Julie noticed that one of the thick smooth green vines that occur along village tracks (White Supplejack) was glowing brightly in the UV light and looking like some otherworldy snake winding its way up to the forest canopy. Words can’t really do it justice so I hope the picture shows why it was it was so memorable.

A White Supplejack Vine (*Ripogonum album*) fluorescing under UV light

You can never tell what interesting things will present themselves when you go out into the rainforest so I encourage everyone to come along on our next night walk in about 2 months. UV torches will be part of our standard kit from now on!

Text and photos by Jamie Oliver

Return of the Hercules Moth?

We have had two previous posts in 2020 and 2021 celebrating observations of the world’s biggest moth (Coscinocera hercules) here in Paluma. This wet season there have been two further reports from Michele Lando and Barry Smith. Comments from previous posts suggest that this striking moth used to be quite common in Paluma some twenty years ago but are now a rare sight.

Perhaps the local population is on the rise? It is plausible that the proliferation of preferred food plant (Bleeding Heart trees – Homalanthus novo-guineensis) around Paluma since cyclone Yasi (2011) has provided an increase in the food source for the caterpillars. There are some empirical data to support this notion. A quick look at records from the Atlas of Living Australia shows the number of records of the Hercules Moth in Queensland has increased substantially since about 2011, which is the year that Yasi hit Queensland.

*Recorded observations of Hercules Moth (primarily in Queensland) since 1991.*
*Source: Atlas of Living Australia*

This type of observational data needs to be interpreted very carefully, however, since it is also possible that the increase since 2011 is simply due to an increase in the number of people recording observations in the popular iNaturalist app.

If you see any more of these wonderful creatures around Paluma, please let Michele Bird or Jamie Oliver know.

Text by Jamie Olver, Photos as indicated

Paluma After Dark Club

Saturday Night, 8 pm, Potters Park. Bring a torch

For a small community, Paluma could be said to have a fairly active schedule of evening events throughout the year, but on most nights the village is pretty quiet – in terms of human activity. However this statement belies the fact that our village and surrounding forest have a very active and often noisy nightlife.

Over the last year or so, following the lead of my son Michael, I have been taking nighttime walks through the village local tracks to see what I could see and hear. With the help of a head torch, binoculars and a frog call recording app on my iPhone I have been able to identify most of the more common and easily detected animals.

Common sightings include bandicoots, Pademelons, barred frogs (on wet nights) native rats. Less common to rare, and mostly not yet seen by me at night are Dingos, pythons, nightigers, Feather-tailed gliders, Possums, and even (over a decade ago) a spotted-tailed quoll.

Common sounds include 2 species of frog (again on wet nights), the thumps of unseen Pademelons retreating into the forest, and the piercing buzz of cicadas (as yet unidentified), Babook owls and Lesser Sooty Owl

Not every evening walk results in a sighting, although after heavy rain, frogs are just about guaranteed. And of course the tiny gleaming eyes of wolf spiders and the ever-present sound of cidadas mean that no night walk is without signs of life.

I am keen to continue to go on a regular night walks around the village and perhaps along the road out to the Dam this year. I invite anyone who is interested to join an unofficial “Paluma After Dark Club” and spend an hour or so every couple of months to see what we can record and discover. The inaugural walk will be this Saturday evening (February 26). Meet at Potters Park opposite 27 Lennox Cr at 8 pm.

Bring a head torch, preferably a bright one that can be focused to a narrow beam. Binoculars are also surprising useful to identify mammals and night birds once they are in the beam of a spotlight.

If the first event garners sufficient interest, we might also consider bringing some experts on specific groups up to give us a talk and a guided walk.

Text and Photos by Jamie Oliver

Rainforest Tree of the Month, December 2021 – Native Hydrangea

The native hydrangea (Abrophyllum ornans) is a small understorey tree (up to 8m high) or shrub that is endemic to Qld and northern NSW. It can be found in rainforest gullies and streams or regrowth areas from Batemans Bay to the McIlwraith Range NE of Coen in Cape York. The Genus Abrophyllum belongs to the family Rousseaceae, which is restricted to New Guinea, Australia New Zealand and Mauritius.

The scientific name refers to its attractive leaf and is derived from the Greek habros (splendid) + phyllon (leaf) and the Latin orno (adorn).

The bark of the native hydrangea is grey or light brown. The alternating leaves are ovate with pointed tips and finely serrated edges (up to 2ocm long and .8 cm wide).

*A. ornans* fruit and flowers (photos by Russell Cumming

Small perfumed whitish yellow flowers develop in branched clusters from October to December and the unopened buds can resemble true Hydrangea flower heads (although the two species are not related). Flowers develop into distinctive purple to blackish berries about .5cm in diameter.

A. ornans is cultivated as a garden ornamental, valued for its handsome clusters of berries, or as an indoor plant. It is easily propagated from cuttings or fresh seeds. It is also considered a useful plant for restoration along rainforest edges.

There is a tagged specimen of A. ornans (white tag # 26) on the H-track at the bottom of the slope down from the start at Whalley Cr.

Text by Jamie Oliver
Photos (unless indicated) by Russell Cumming on Flickr

Paluma Dam Spillway Concrete Works – Project Update:

From Councillor Margie Ryder:

Townsville City Council is committed to providing and maintaining $5.4B worth of community assets consisting of water and wastewater networks, bridges, drainage, roads, waste management and spillway maintenance.

Paluma Dam spillway infrastructure maintenance works are ongoing that will see the delivery of protection barrier installed to the foundations of the dams spillways bridge.

Works are now at the stage for the construction of the new protective concrete barrier ‘slab’ that will be poured onto the existing surface. These works will require a convey of concrete trucks that will be using the Paluma Dam access road which will cause traffic delays.

Council will have traffic management in place; however, dependable on weather conditions the unsealed access road to the Dam including the Paluma Dam campgrounds may have considerable delays on the day of concrete pouring.

The Paluma Dam, Concrete Pouring works are scheduled to commence on Thursday, 02 December 2021 and are expected to take one day to complete.

Please be advised that the concrete trucks will be operational 7am through to 2pm. Normal traffic conditions will return post 2pm.

Townsville City Council Update on their Website

Rainforest Tree of the Month, November 2021 – Messmate (Eucalyptus cloeziana)

Although the rainforest around Paluma is extensive, covering over 42km², it forms a narrow north-south band that changes to eucalyptus dominated sclerophyll forest as one travels east down the range or west towards Hidden Valley. The border between rainforest and sclerophyll forest is not fixed, and some studies have shown that the rainforest is slowly expanding and encroaching on the ecologically important sclerophyll habitats that host a number of important species of plants and animals. Late last century there was concern that rainforest expansion might be an ecological threat to adjacent forests but more recent work shows that the rate of expansion is very low, and current climate predictions for destructive cyclones and increased bushfire severity in the region suggest that rainforests are the more threatened of the two habitats.

Some evidence of past rainforest encroachment can still be found along some walking tracks, where there are huge old Eucalyptus trees that would have germinated in open forest have survived the fierce competition for light that characterises rainforest habitats and now stand as anomalous reminders border dynamics. This series has already highlighted two sclerophyll trees that can be found near rainforest margins (Eucalyptus grandis and Syncarpia glomulifera). A third species is the Messmate (Eucalyptus cloeziana).

The track down to Triple Falls from the H-track has some magnificent old messmate trees in an area just adjacent to open forest at the crest of the escarpment. This tree is endemic to eastern Queensland and in ideal conditions can grow to 55m in height. The lower trunk has rough flakey or fibrous bark, but is smooth on the upper trunk and branches. Leaves are lanceolate to ovate 0.2-1.3cm long. Flowering occurs has been recorded in December and January. The mature gum nuts are globose to hemispherical, 0.4–0.7 cm long, 0.6–1.1 cm wide.

Messmate has been logged over most of its range and is now cultivated in plantations. It has been imported to Africa and is one of the more important general purpose hardwood plantation trees in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The species name (cloeziana) was chosen in honour of Francois Cloez, a chemist who originally identified the chemical cineole as the major constituent of eucalyptus oil.

Text and photos (unless indicated) by Jamie Oliver

Rainforest Tree of the Month, October 2021 – Buff Alder

The buff alder (Apodytes brachystylis) is a common understory tree in well-developed rainforests from sea level to 1200m. The genus (around 8 species are recognised) is distributed from Africa through Asia to the western Pacific, but A. brachystylis is endemic to (found only in) north Queensland and is most common in upland rainforests from Cooktown to Townsville.

The leaves have a wavy margin and the leaf stems (petioles) are yellowish with a grooved upper surface. The flowers are small (petals 3-4.5mm long) with hairs on the inner surface.

Left : Buff Alder flower and buds (photo by B. Jago CC by 3.0).
Right: Leaves (Photo by Russel Cumming on Flickr)

None of these features make it easy to spot this species during a casual walk through the rainforest, however, once the fruit drops ) to the ground (November to February) this species is unmistakable. Usually what drops is a very handsome combination of a dark blue-black receptacle (the basal part of the flower) and a bright green carpel (the seed bearing structure that contains the ovaries, stigma and style).

Fallen buff alder fruit. Right image shows examples where only the green carpel remains on the ground.

Tagged buff alder on H-track.
Photo by Will Cairns

Based on my frequent encounters with the fallen fruit on the tracks around Paluma it appears to be quite common around the village. There is a tagged specimen (White Tag Number 16) of the tree about 3/4 of the way down the slope toward the main plank bridge on the H-Track (starting from Whalley Crescent.

Text and Photos (unless indicated) by Jamie Oliver