Coal Point Progress Association Landcare is a small, dedicated group of landcarers who are happy to welcome and provide training to new members. We meet every Thursday 8am-12pm, rotating around our local reserves
According to the Awabakal seasonal calendar we are at the end of the hot dry time of the year and looking forward to cooler weather with some rain. The kararkarmatara (banksia) is a common flowering plant on Awabakal Country during wunal (summer). The kararkarmatara exudes a rich nectar from its muraban (flowers), and it was common practice among Aboriginal people to enjoy its sweet taste. At Landcare we enjoy spotting the flowers and watching the pollinators at work. The Banksia serrata (Old man banksia) is the one in flower to look out for now.
We also spend a lot of energy working on eradicating weeds to give the native plants room to grow. A sleeper weed that is awakening at the moment is the formidable Formosa lily. It looks pretty, with its bold white trumpet flowers, has a fun seed capsule that makes a great rattling sound and the seeds are flung far when shaken. This makes them very attractive to pick and play with while walking through the bush. But today’s fun is tomorrow’s bane of the bush and the rapid increase in Formosa lily numbers is a problem.
After a few weeks there was some evidence of germination with a few thin leaves visible. Two months later leaves were quite visible on the germinated scales with 60% germination.
What was interesting, disturbing and unexpected, was that several plants germinated from the one scale!
In the wild this possibly explains why there can seem to be a few plants close together when we weed.
The twinning of the Formosa lily was on display at the February landcare session on the the old water tank site on West Ridge, where Nico was dwarfed by the monster twin-lily (The Lily flower and seed pod are not to scale).
After years of methodically removing Formosa lily flowers from our bushland the odd plant or two still manages to emerge over summer. If the flower gets pollinated hundreds of seeds form, get blown on the wind and the process continues.
The flower buds are forming now and it’s time to get this garden escapee out of the bush. If you like cut flowers feel free to collect this ornamental and scented flower and take it home, just leave enough of the stalk so the landcarers can remove the garlic like bulb.
If you’d like to have a go at removing the whole plant to give the bush a breather there’s an instructional video that the local landcarers put together on the website- Formosa foe not friend.
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