What do gum trees, wattle etc reveal about australia?

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wtg_ib

just went out the back-yard talked to the gum-tree for 20 min it didn't tell me a bloody thing(but the neighbor thinks I'm a bit nuts) he told me a few things

The_Mouse

That our own flora and fauna don't give a stuff about the other continents. We are unique.

iansand9876

Many of them are adapted to survive heat, fire and drought. So it tells you that Australia is a hot dry country with occasional bushfires.

sharonlee

Don't know - they don't really talk all that much!! They won't tell me anything!

fanta

i would say only place you would find them and nothing better than the smell they give of

referralguru

Gum trees are types of eucalyptus trees and wattles are acacias, in dact Australia has so many Acacias they run out of names for all the acacias so the botanist said "What'll we call this acacia" and then they got the name whattle as in what'll. Get it ? Ha Ha Ha HA thats a sick joke but its the best I can come up with. More importantly the Wattle is used as a common name because during the early days our ancestors (God bless their cotton sox) used acacias to build their wattle and daub huts because a lot od acacias are termite resistant.

There you go about as interesting as I can get.

antipodean22

I suppose they reflect the limited nutrient levels of much of Austrlia's soil, as well as the variable nature of the weather.
Gum trees tend to not shed there leaves, until all the nutrient have been extracted from the leaf and back into the tree. The trees also also limit the growth of other plants nearby (allelopathy).
River Red Gum are one of the most wide spread specie of Eucalyptus and occur over most of Australia (fom the tropics to the alpine regions).
Eucalypts can rapidly respond to high rainfall by growth quickly. They can also be highly flamable but quickly regrow after fire events. Eucalypts often have very deep root systems (reflecting the limited water availability in many parts of Australia) and can live for 100's, mabye a thousand, years.
I have heard rumours that eucalyptus are also found as a native species in India but I'm not sure how true this is.

FORKY

nothing mate, they're trees

brissy_006

If we dont get any rain soon...barren, dry, nothing...a fact.

SteveK

Well, if you want a scientific answer, they reveal that Australia has been geographically isolated for a long period of time - hence the number and diversity of purely endemic species of plants (and animals).

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