The top paddock in January 2013

I have been spending a bit of time in the top paddock recently, mainly keeping up the battle against brambles, briars, serrated tussock, thistles and St John's Wort.  However before getting to the baddies here are some more pleasing shots:

This shows how dry the paddock is but also the number of Red Box (Eucalyptus polyanthemos) growing. I suspect in a few years we will have a nice bit of woodland here.  All we have done is not put stock in the paddock: the 'roos who have done a fine job of trimming the grass appear to ignore the treelings.

This image shows part of our biggest clump of Xerochrysum viscosum (Everlasting Daisy).  In total the patch covers a couple of acres.

Another indication of dryness.  This dam is fed by a spring, and has never gone dry.  However my guess is that it is about 50cm lower than in October.

Even thistles do some good.  This is a Flower Scarab having a go.  I had a go shortly thereafter with my brickies hammer!

 Thistles and brambles mixed in with some Poa labillardieri tussocks.

 A view up the gully full of Poa labillardieri tussocks running down from the dam.  A few brambles are erupting and will be dealt with in due course.

Feral pig

Seen in the top paddock on 14 November.  It ran off to Taliesin where hopefully the property staff will meet it.  The small dog was most interested in the scent trail but fortunately was on leash.

Why Lambs are silent in our area

The 'official' common name for Verbascum thapsus in this area is Great Mullein.  However it is often colloquially referred to as Lamb's Ears reflecting both the shape and feel of the leaves.  It's an annoying and noxious weed and we whup it when we find some on our property.  Recently I noticed a patch on a neighbouring property and, with the manager's agreement, went to pay it some attention.

This image could be titled "before".

A close-up showing how the flower is well developed, and suggesting I wielded the brickie's hammer about the right time.

This image shows the length of the roots - about 1.5m in this case.  There are many buds along the roots and if the crown alone is removed they all sprout later.

 This could be entitled 'After' as it shows the pile of stuff formed by some of the plants I removed.

The reason lambs are silent now is that they have no ears!  So perhaps they are deaf rather than dumb?

As an interesting linguistic aside I tend to call the process of digging things up in this way 'spudding' while others refer to it as 'chipping'.  I suspect neither word actually has anything to do with potatoes.

The next image is a serendipitous shot of some sprayed brambles I walked past on my way to the Verbascum.  Hopefully I am getting on top of them: I have used 30 litres of spray so far this year and intend to use another 20 or so before the brambles and briers set fruit.

The naming of Keeled flowers

I have chosen the reference to 'keeled' flowers in the title since IMHO there is some daftness in the name of the family I am posting about.

The received "wisdom" at present is that they are now known as Fabaceae while when I grew up they were known as Leguminosae.    The first of these words relates to Faba -the Latin for 'bean' - while the latter relates to legumen - the Latin for 'pea'.  As Beans were (apparently - it seems to me Linnaeus wrote about the whole shebang in 1753) described before Peas it is apparently a rule that the earlier occurring name for a member of the family is used.  Or at least a guideline (even restricting the meaning of "described" to the nefarious activities of post-Linnaean taxonomists).

So far so good.  Now we come to the difficulties:

• People still talk about the 'peas' when referring to this family;
• Leguminosae is an older name still considered valid (by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature);
• The International Legume Database & Information Service comments about  "... the pea or bean family, the Leguminosae (Fabaceae in the USA)" (aha! The sulphurous stench of Yankee scientific imperialism!);
• "The name 'Fabaceae' comes from the defunct genus Faba, now included in Vicia.'  (So why are they not the Viciaceae?  Possibly because more taxonomists eat baked beans than vetches: good things those guidelines.)

For the time being I will say such discussion is probably best left to taxonomists.  It keeps them off the streets and stops bad behaviour.  I will reluctantly use the term Fabaceae since that is used by the Australian Plant Census.  At least until a taxonomist is really desperate for a new publication.

Whatever.  Unless the taxonomists have changed things again while I have been composing this, there are a number of genera within the family Fabaceae named after individuals.  I thank Ian Fraser for a blogpost  explaining how Hardenbergia is named in honour of Franziska von Hardenberg.  The common member of this family is of course Hardenbergia violacea.

I then discovered that Hovea is also named after a person.  In this case a Polish botanist  Anton Pantaleon Hove.   He seems to have travelled widely in his period of activity (fl. 1785-98 or fl.1785‑1829, depending on one’s source).   Two Australian links for Hove are

• ·    his despatch by Banks to acquire cotton plants from India for use in other British colonies; and
• ·    a position as botanist on a covert mission to Namibiato determine whether than area or Botany Bay should be the penal colony to replace (what is now) the USA.

 Swainsona is named after Isaac Swainson, a botanist and herbalist, best known for his treatments for venereal diseases.  Four members of the genus are found in the ACT of which S. sericea is the more common.

We will now move into the ‘egg and bacon’ plants, beginning with the genus Pultenaea.   This taxon is named after Richard Pulteney,  an English physician and botanist who authored  the first English biography of Linnaeus.   He also provided the first accounts of Leicestershire botany.   (For those with corvidophagic connections  he has, as far as I can determine, no connection with Pulteney Street in Adelaide.)  The image offered is P. procumbens, a prolific species in our area of interest.

Daviesia commemorates Hugh Davies a Welshman who compiled the first volume to cross-reference plant names in the Welsh language with their scientific names.  This book  is still regarded as the most complete list of plant names in Welsh.   Its treatment of the flora of Anglesey was also the first detailed consideration of the flora of a Welsh county, as opposed to the more common approach of that time of uncoordinated plant investigations.

Dillwynnia was named in favour of Lewis Weston Dillwynn[8] who was born in Essex UK but lived for much of his life in Wales managing the family industrial assets.   His best known work The British Confervae is an illustrated study of British freshwater algae.  Proving that he, like his son Lewis Llewellyn Dillwyn, was an all-round naturalist, he also  named Lithopoma gibberosa, a species of sea snail, 

Followers of modern music (or US politics) might hope that Bossiaea was named after Bruce Springsteen.  Alas it is not so.   This genus was named for Joseph Hugues(or Hugh) de Boissieu (de) La Martinière a member of La Perouse’s expedition of 2 ships  which disappeared in the Solomon Islands in 1788.  Surely this is the most arbitrary collection of characters from one name to form a second, especially since the gentleman was also known, more simply, as Joseph La Martinière!  As the expedition visited Botany Bay en route it is possible that he saw representatives of the genus to be named after him.

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The exotic locust-bean genus gets a run in the ACT Plant Census (presumably through “feralisation”).  This genus is named after the royal French gardeners Jean Robin and his son Vespasian Robin, who introduced the plant to Europe in 1601.  (In view of the name of the founder of Melbourne it is perhaps surprising that no plants have been named after John Batman.)

An interesting reversal  is the genus  ‘Genista’ which is simply the Latin for “broom”.  It was however slightly adapted – via Plantae Genista - into the name Plantagenet[13]!  It is claimed the nickname arose because Geoffrey of Anjou wore a sprig of the common broom in his hat.

Looking through these names I am interested that at least two seem to have a Welsh connection and another two names celebrate people who were the first to compile a list for a relatively small area of territory.  Perhaps members on ANPS have a chance to get a genus (or at least a species) named after them if they develop lists of their patch?

Deer in Carwoola

I was astonished several months back to find a dead deer on Briars-Sharrow Rd near the Molonglo River.  More recently Frances and I were both astonished when we saw a pair in Whiskers Creek Rd.

So this evening we were doubly astonished when Frances saw these from the lounge window!

The worlds most expensive dead rabbit

The rabbit population on our property is getting completely out of line, and the Calicivirus release only seemed to provide a temporary lull in the explosion.  They don't seem to eat the Pindone enhanced oats readily and the delays in getting trained in the use of Pindone carrots have been ridiculous.

So I decided in November 2011 to acquire - through a legal process - a low powered gun to deal with the issue.  I got my gun, an Optimo .410 shotgun, on Monday 7 May.  I may at some stage post about the cause of this vast time lag, but this post is about the financial cost.

Item 1: Gun safety course ($135)
Item 2: 5 year Gun License ($200)
Item 3: Gun safe: ($220)
Item 4: Permit to acquire firearm ($30)
Item 5: Gun ($255)

Total $840

This morning I shot my first rabbit.  Had I decided to butcher and eat it, rather than chucking it up the hill for the raptors and foxes to dispose of, one could only wash such expensive meat down with a bottle of Grange!

As a footnote to this, having noticed that a hole giving access under our red shed was clearly being used on a regular basis I positioned my possum trap ($100) in front of it.  In the 10 days since this post was originally published I have caught and disposed of 3 rabbits.  That brings the total caught with the trap to approximately 50- about $2 each!

Another update.  By 6 June, which I make 25 days after 12 May, I have caught 6 rabbits in the trap.  The intriguing fact is how the blighters are getting under the shed, as I thought I had blocked nearly all holes.  Some of them have been quite small while others have been absolutely full grown.  As the corpses get thrown into the Kunzea, the local Ravens are enjoying the supplement to their diet,

Yet more update!  On 26 August the average cost per bunny dropped to $420.  I had also taken one out of the trap this morning: my first 2 wabbit day.  This comment from an Invasive animals group is interesting.

Fleabane part 2

After the apparent success in part of the top paddock on 10 March I decided to go and deal with the weeds in the re-vegetated paddock on the 11th.  Clearly there were a lot to deal with: note also the height of the acacias in the background.

 This is a close-up of one of the taller flower spikes of Fleabane.  Since the side branches were never higher than the axis and the plants were often >1m high I concluded that this was Tall Fleabane (Conyza albida).

 That ID tends to be confirmed by the relatively un-dented leaves.

 As I wandered this paddock I noticed a number of spots where brambles were beginning to emerge.  My Weed Whacka dealt with them swiftly.

There were no Eucalypt seedlings growing here but it did look as though acacia seedlings were beginning to emerge in the areas between the furrows.  I am basing this on them being a green tree - probably Acacia mearnsii, rather than the grey-blue A. dealbata which is the dominant local species.