Mt Wellington, Tasmania, a very short field trip

[Lesley Cox]

Don Schofield and I spent a half morning on Mt Wellington, before going to visit Essie Huxley and Ken and Lesley Gillanders. The mountain is just a few minutes drive from Tasmania's largest city, Hobart, and overlooks the town with some great views from the top. It's not much of a challenge to walkers, with a tar-sealed road right to the top, but there are some great plants and it seems to me, is an area typical of much of the Tasmanian alpine flora.

First, with much mist, Hobart from Mt Wellington. Hobart spreads far and wide on both sides of the Derwent River, with many larger and smaller towns and villages making up a large suburban area. I see that there is even a tiny town called Otago!



The top of the mountain is very rocky but easy to negotiate







Many of the Tasmanian alpine plants are related to NZ species, and in some cases, the same species are in both countries.  Unfortunately there were very few flowers because this was mid April after all, well into autumn but there was great fruit on many plants.



This is Astelia alpina



Orites revoluta, an unlikely looking member of the Protea family. Ken Gillanders helped with naming many of these pictures, direct from camera. In my little book of Tasmanian wildflowers, there's some difference in some names, but you'll get the general idea anyway.



This is an elderly "manuka" as we would call it here. Leptospermum rupestre is prostrate on these high, windy mountains but taller in lower and sheltered areas.



Cyathodes straminea is called "cheeseberry." Its fruit are flattened as if pressed down by a thumb.



The foliage of Celmisia saxifraga has a lovely silver sheen. I'd really like to see this one in flower. It seems to be mat-forming.



The genus Richea is endemic in Australia and has some beautiful specfies which range from low shrublets to tall, tropical-looking trees, rather like our own Dracophyllums but the flowers are quite something else, in strong colours. This lowish shrubby plant was very like and Acantholimon in appearance. It is probably Richea scoparia.

[Lesley Cox]

Ozothamnus rodwayi (or as Ken said, Helichrysum ledifolium_)



Pimelea sericea is related to Daphne and has a beautiful scent, as do the NZ species



Looking very like some of the NZ species, is Coprosma nitida



Foliage of Gaultheria hispida. This is a generally tallish species and this little bit of foliage was the only sign we saw on Mt Welolington but two days later we saw superb fruiting plants on Mt Field. It would make a very fine garden plant I think.



Much of the terrain was like this open heathland, and the following two plants were typical



A creeping and mat-forming fern, Gelichenia (probably) alpina and



Cyathodes parvifolia

[Thomas Huber]

Hi Lesley!

Great show. Looks like you had a wonderful time and beautiful weather in Hobart!
Do you have photos of Marcus' garden??

[TC]

Lesley
My first reaction on looking at the thumbnails was " That woman is fit ! ".  Then I read that there was a road to the top.  That's my idea of mountain climbing.  A nice picnic hamper and a small bottle of wine to complete it. It's nice seeing pictures from a part of the world that is not on the main tourist routes.
I have spent the morning climbing up and down sea cliffs being painfully reminded of my near geriatric status ! 

[hadacekf]

Lesley,
Great pictures of a very beautiful country and information’s -  enjoyed them!
Thanks

[David Nicholson]

Lovely pictures Lesley, more please if you have them!

[Paddy Tobin]

Lesley,

Wonderful photographs. The blue of the sky in the first photographs is so fabulous.

You might be tiring of it but thanks again for great photographs from down under. Really enjoy them and am fascinated by them.

Paddy

[rob krejzl]

Lesley,

re: Ozothamnus rodwayi (or as Ken said, Helichrysum ledifolium_)

I think Ken mispoke. H. ledifolium is now O. ledifolius, the Kerosene bush (or Hepatitis daisy-bush if you prefer). Very common on Wellington but rare elsewhere. O. rodwayi is a different beast.

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks Rob, so mine above is Oz. ledifolius? I'll change my notes.

Thomas, apart from the snake in Marcus garden (Autumn/April in the Southern Hemisphere) I didn't take pictures at Marcus' house at all because -THERE IS NO GARDEN!!! - even though he has the best commercial collection of bulbs in the southern hemisphere. What he DOES have, is hundreds of deep polystyrene boxes filled with bulbs and seeds of all ages, and these are his selling resource. Believe me, they are not photogenic. There were only a very few crocuses in flower, just ones and twos mostly and not worth a picture, a couple of cyclamen and a solitary flower on an early Iris unguicularis.

He also has juno irises and oncos in a tunnel but either underground or just beginning to sprout, and at another nursery, Sally Johansson's, along with the rarer crocuses. Then at his girlfriend's place he has snowdrops, so things are spread about a bit. His own place is extremely steep and literally, is harder to climb than any of the bush walking I did. I did take a few pics of the trays, the house and his car below it, to get an idea of the slope but they're not worth showing. Enough to say that Marcus' car on the driveway, is only about 4 metres away from the house, but so far below it that only the roof could be seen. The boxes are on 14 different levels, with only a few steps between each level, yet the height of each level is more than a man's height. No way could I live there, but Marcus is tall, skinny and super fit.

Those above are all the Mt Wellington pics but I'll soon start on some from Mt Field National Park, west and slightly south of Hobart. It was a super day but I soon found, Tom, that I am NOT fit, at all.

[rob krejzl]

Lesley,

"Oz. ledifolius"?

Pretty sure from the pic; ledifolius has oblong-linear leaves with blunt tips, rodwayi has wedge-shaped leaves with a hairy underside.