Blue Mountains with the Botanists

We had a very restful night at our Blue Mountain hide-away, The Waldorf.  After two days of being on the road by 7:30 it was luxurious to leave at 8am after a hot breakfast. 

Our first stop was a little walk through temperate rainforest near Mt. Wlison.  This was a short walk, but there were three interesting plants for me. (I think more for everyone else.).  Because of a recent wind storm, we saw some branches that had blown down from the canopy above, fairly recently.  They are doomed, now, unfortunately, but we could get a good look at how the orchids live on the branches of the host tree way up high where they also receive much more light than on the floor.  The next interesting  plant is called Tasmania , and it has crazy fruit that are very "primitivve" (ancestral is the correct term) where the style ends up outside of the fruit as it develops.  Finally, we saw a little fern called Tmesipteris.  It would be hard to find without someone pointing it out.  When I was in college, this little fern was thought not to be a fern, but something ancestral to all the vascular plants.  This little fern is very simple-- no true roots or leaves.  Since its DNA has been sequenced, it's true relationship to other ferns has been determined.  They are pictured above, and what you see are highly specialized stems serving as the photosynthetic surface AND as the root surface.  Through their evolution, they have lost their roots and leaves.  (Don't let this shake you, just think of snakes that are reptiles that have lost their limbs through evolutionary time).  They are growing on a tree fern stem.  This may not excite you, but look at just part of the crowd it drew.  I haven't drawn a crowd with that many cameras since I was halfway through my single digit birthdays!

Our next stop was further into the mountains.  To get there, we took a road with a name that begs explanation.  The name of the road is "Bells Line Of Road."  It looks like a mistake on the road sign, but it is a very deliberate name.  Bell was a surveyor who laid the road line, although the road was not built right away, for political reasons.  Folks were well aware of his road line, though, probably because it was so superior to the road that was in use, so when the road was eventually built, it was named Bells Line Of Road. 

At this stop we climbed part of the way up Mt Banks.  At least, the map names it as Mt Banks.  At the trailhead, the historic marker says "Mt Banks or Mt King George."  I am sticking with the Mt Banks name, in part because I am pretty sure this George was the one America fought a war against, and also because it was named Banks, after a famous botanist, by the explorer who climbed the mountain.  We had beautiful views from the near top.

And a close look at some tiny plants.

We drove to our lunch and afternoon spot after our descent.  This was the lovely Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens, part of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney.  Since Mount Tomah is in the Blue Mountains, it can host the cold climate collection of the Royal Botanic Gardens.  It is a new garden--really only about thirty years old, although you would never know that by walking amongst the beds.  It has a nice geographic arrangement as well, with a creek separating plants of the northern hemisphere from the southern.  We got to see Wollemi Pine, nearer to its wild home, in this gardern.  (There is a specimen growing in the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.)  The Wollemi was thought to be extinct, but then found by some bushwalkers in the Blue Mountains about ten years ago.  Although there is a small cluster in the wild, its location a closely guarded secret.  Public, private and botanical gardens are its refuge.  It is a cool looking tree.  And, it has its own Facebook fan page.

Male cone.  The Wollemi has very soft needles.

The parking lot of the Mt. Tomah Botanic Gardens was our good-bye location, since some members of the trip didn't come directly back to Sydney.  We had a pretty quiet van ride back; I think passengers of all ages were thoughful and a bit tired.  Murray Henwood (University of Sydney) and Barry Ponns (Royal Botanic Garden) did an excellent job planning this trip, and especially exercising patience and high, good humor with the trip participants.  Believe me, telling a group of botanists that they have to ceasing looking at and photographing plants in order to get to the next stop, is quite a challenge.

We have a city day tomorrow.

South of Sydney

The botanists were off on a full day field trip to some natural areas south of Sydney, and the boys and I went with them.  We stopped throughout the day, and the main areas we saw were rainforest.  Above are two photos from my walk on "The Fly," a spectacular walkway in the canopy in Illawarra natural area.  When I got out onto the catilevered terminal end, JR was bouncing up and down.  He swears he was encouraged to do this by one of the graduate students from Russia.  I am not sure who to believe...

From the rainforest part of the trip, my absolute favorite was seeing tree ferns.  We don't have them in the "new world," and Australia is my first old world rainforest, so I was quietly excited. They are ferns, so they look like ferns, except that they stand as tall as small trees.  The are old, as a group--- older than any seed plants.  There are lots of ways to define success, but the photo above shows one way.

We went to Minnamurra rainforest next, which has both subtropical and temperate rainforest.  The area has been saved from too many human footsteps with an extensive boardwalk.  We had an excellent botanist/ecologist show the group around.  This area was carved out by a rivulet which added to the diversity.

In the latter part of the afternoon we drove to Royal National Park, stopping at a scenic overlook for a photo along the way.  Here are a pair of photos from what looked to me like the edge of the world.

 Boys on the Brink

Botanists on the Brink

We arrived at our last stop in Royal National Park very close to sundown.  Royal National Park is the oldest national park in the world, ahead of Yellowstone in the USA.  We were out of the rainforest and into a desert-like habitat, with sand underfoot, not because of the current coast, but because of an ancient coast that became sandstone under pressure, has now had uplift and erosion turning it back into sand particles.  We saw the biggest diversity of plants in flower.  Before I had even set foot from the van, though, John Roy, who had alighted first, was on his way back to me with a Banksia pod in his hand.  In our family we know this plant and its pod because my father, who is a wood turner, makes vases from them.  Banksia is highly dependent on fire, at a high temperature, to reproduce, and the seeds also seem to require a drenching rain after the fire.

Banksia under a sliver of the moon at sunset

We have been accepted into the clan now, and have another trip tomorrow, to the Blue Mountains. We leave at dawn....

Alan has read four books so far on this trip Down Under, and I am hoping that the fifth book lasts until we are home!

Independent Boys and International Botanists

The morning mission for the boys and me was to see the Sydney Opera House on a tour.  Mission:  failure.  We arrived when there was a performance or two, so no tours.  The best we accomplished was a close up, and a trip to the bathrooms.  These bathrooms, though, were worth it since they were clearly as designed as the rest of the building.  As you can see from this photo, the sinks are one solid piece of porcelain, maybe?  And it has been gently cast in the form of a wave.  Each trough of the wave is a sink "basin," and the water runs off the back as if it is heading for a collision with the back-splash.  We will go back--obviously if I am impressed with the washroom sinks, I just have to see the rest of the building.  We have plans for the next three days, so I can't hope to return until Sunday, our very last day in Australia.

Entering The Rocks, with school children on the green for a lesson.

We walked from the Opera House through Circular Quay to The Rocks and saw The Rocks Discovery Museum.  The Rocks are the oldest area of Sydney.  Various municipal governments have tried to "clean up" the neighborhood at various times in its history.  Probably unfairly, it has been thought of as a poor neighborhood, but evidence from excavations really make it seem as though it has always been working class at worst, and perhaps never an actual slum.  Construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge took some of the buildings of The Rocks down, and again in the 1970's urban renewal tried to rebuild the older neighborhood.  Fortunately, protestors prevailed, and the area is home to many artists and quaint little shops today.  We enjoyed the museum since it took such care to explain the urban archaeology.

We returned to Circular Quay and boarded a ferry to take us around to Darling Harbour.  The ferries are great.  They are a fast way between shore points in the city, but the best part is that the views are spectacular.

Luna Park in North Sydney (the other side of the Harbour Bridge. Does that face look kid friendly to you?

We went to Darling Harbour (yet again, for the third day in a row) because Mark had invited me to dine with the botanists.  That meant the boys were on their own.  I set them up for a showing of Transformers 3D at the eight story IMAX, bought them lunch, and gave them still more cash for dinner and a potential game of laser tag.  In the photo they are eating Subway.  Yes, you can take the boys out of the country, but you can't always take the country out of the boys.  They did also play laser tag, and of that shocking amount of cash, they returned 80 cents.

I had a splendid evening.  There are 30-40 participants at this meeting.  Mark gave his talk today, and I was able to hear it.  Great job and interesting discussion from the other members.  Then they were photographed, and I got to be one of the photographers:

We headed around the garden on a very selected tour to see specimens from the Apiales group.  These plants have more subtle flowers than most people are attuned to.  In North America, most members of this group are not woody, but in a botanical garden, you can see species that are tropical and trees or shrubs.  When you walk through a garden with a group of botanists, you go slowly.

Finally, we all had dinner.  This group is very international so it was very fun!  There are scientists from South Africa, Russia, France, and Australia, of course.  It's not uncommon for an individual to be international all by themselves-- so born in China and works in the States, or born in the States but works in France, or born in New Zealand and works in Australia. Most of the scientists have traveled for research purposes, outside of their residential country.  This group has been trying to meet every three years,somewhere in the world, for the last twelve years or so.  They give me the feeling of being at a college reunion.  It was a very convivial group.  I may maneuver to become a tag-a-long from now on.

In spite of the good cheer, I can also wax philosophical about everyone being together here.  It is not necessarily easy to get together when everyone comes from distant parts of the world.  Whichever botanist organizes the trip loses time from his or her regular work to do so.  There is no doubt, though, that being together is very useful.  One way that it helps is by giving students a wider group of contacts.  Many of the participants are PhD students or post docs.  The other way that it is helpful is in giving everyone a chance to hear about how work is progressing prior to publication, which can take a long time.  I think the best part, though, is that when you are sitting with a group of international botanists, it is clear that the plants belong to all of us. 

The scientists looking at a specimen.

Fish, Mark Speaks and a bit of Immigration

Big day-- Mark gave his symposium talk this afternoon.  The other three members of the family trooped over to the Exhibition Center to listen.  Alan even took notes.  We think Mark did a good job.  We haven't seen him yet to tell him so, though.  We slipped out after he had finished answering questions and he is out for dinner with some of his colleagues. Mark spoke about why andromonoecy, the sexual system where plants have both hermaphrodite and male only flowers, is so common in the Apiales.  I may have lost you already.  The Apiales are the plant order that contains celery, carrots, Schefflera, and ginseng.  Mark's been studying it one way or another since graduate school.  Andromonoecy is extremely rare in plants generally, so it is interesting why it is more common in these plants.  Mark tries to solve this mystery through a look at ancestry, plant structure and, of course, reproductive success.

I have been getting teased in the family for predicting when we see a botanist.  Those from Europe and the States may be identified like this:  They usually are men, have beards, are lanky or generally look fit, and carry backpacks or some other gear made of outdoorsy fabric.  The usually do not wear neckties, although there are exceptions.  Leg wear is often khaki, cargo or zip-off.  The botanists from Asia are generally more formal in attire, even wearing suits.  Even though it is 2011, I am afraid that most of the over 2000 scientists here are men.  Overall, I think the South America is far too under represented.  I hope you saw my sense of humor at the start of the paragraph.  But, regarding South America I am pretty serious:  Since there's a huge rainforest facing extinctions every day on that continent, I hope that these meetings will eventually be able to draw colleagues from South America to them.

Lion Fish

Sea Kelp Dragon--the whole thing

Before the talk, the boys and I spent the morning at the Melbourne Aquarium.  Cool fish!  Alan says his favorite was the lion fish.  I liked the sea kelp dragon.   The aquarium was full of very small, loud children, as well as a large group from a seniors home.  John Roy's analysis:   "We have the opposite ends of the spectrum--the very young and the very old.   We also have the same end of the spectrum:  Has trouble walking, has trouble walking."  At any rate, it was a small and interesting aquarium with fish I hadn't seen before.  I always know that JR will like learning about nature, but I was pleasantly surprised that Alan too, had so much enthusiasm.

After Mark's talk the boys and I split up.  They swam at the hotel, while I visited Melbourne's Immigration Museum.  I walked in just an hour or so before closing and commented that I didn't have much time.  The clerk looked me over and asked if I had any concessions.  That translates to, did I belong to any discountable category.  "No, I am not a student, and I am not a pensioner,"  I answered.  "Are you a teacher? " he asked.  "Why yes, I am...but not in Australia; in the States."  "You can go in for free. I'll put you down as an 'overseas' student, since surely you'll learn something while you're in there."  I thought this was very nice.  I also wonder how he knew I was a teacher...

It was interesting to learn about the history of immigration in another country of immigrants.  Just like you might find at Ellis Island in New York, the story of immigration here has lots of successful moments, and also very sad ones, where prejudice has influenced policy.  Even without refugee status, the story of an immigrant is tied to some of a the darkest moments in history.  The museum had lots of artifacts that told the stories in an interesting way.   It is clear that most recent efforts have been directed toward pride in diversity, and also efforts to define Australia as having a place and identity in the Asia-Pacific and not just as a former colony of Britain.  I can sense that this new identity is emerging.

One clever part of the display about traveling here looked like the inside of a ship.  Outside of the display were some very cute portholes.  The portholes had none of the human immigrants depicted, but some of the other immigrants that might have been found in the hold.  I skipped photographing the cockroaches.  Here are two others:

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The rats are partying. Their porthole caption says "...We go where we want."

This porthole depicts Camellias being shipped from England to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Melbourne

The other achievement today was that JR taught us how to use Australian ketchup ('tomato sauce') packets without squirting the red stuff all over our clothing.  I have a great little how-to video from him, but it is taking  too long to load, so that may just have to be a sequel.

Our botany hero has returned to his family.  He has had a good day!

Melbourne City Tour and Window Shopping

City view from the balcony of the Shrine of Remembrance

The boys and I were off on our own bright and early for our city tour.  It was gray and rainy and on our whole big coach bus, there were only a total of six passengers.  We drove around in circles with the very kind and hugely enthusiastic bus driver/tour guide.  Rule #1 in Melbourne:  If you live here, you sincerely love the city, and take a lot of pride in its culture, food, cityscape.  I am interested to see what Rule #1 is when we get to Sydney.

By driving around in circles, we did get a pretty good idea of the neighborhoods and easy to navigate city center.  We were permitted to get off the bus twice.  The first time was to see Capt. Cook's cottage.  It has been bought and moved here and placed in one of Melbourne's many city gardens.  Capt. Cook probably never lived in it-- but his parents did.  The cottage garden was particularly nice in the rain.  The second time we were permitted off the bus was to visit the Shrine of Remembrance.  This was affecting.  Remembrance Day is celebrated on the traditional Armistice Day, just like Veteran's Day in the States.  The Shrine is designed so that at 11am on November 11th, the sun shines directly down a shaft into a crypt to light the memorial which is my second photo above.

Container ships being loaded in Victoria Harbour

After our bus tour, we walked to our river tour.  We boarded a pretty small boat and got to see some of Melbourne from the Yarra River. We had a colorful boat pilot who was full of impartial political commentary. 
One example:  How can the politicians spend tens of thousands of dollars for flags to decorate a bridge, when there are homeless people who live under the bridge?  We did see his point.

Both John Roy and I were totally fascinated with the view of the container ships from the water.  They are massive, and being loaded with huge cranes.  The longshoremen who work the cranes earn quite a salary-- those in training make over $90,000 AUS a year.  They are only permitted to work the crane for one hour out of their shift.  They load the container to "within a centimeter" of precision.  It would be a disaster at sea for the cargo to shift even a bit.  We're wondering what a crane operator does for the rest of the shift?  Plan the load?  Paperwork?  Tea and biscuits?  We also learned that it is nearly impossible to get this work unless you have a family member or close friend who can put a word in for you.  The waiting list for training is four years.  Operating the crane seems like good work for a video game trained generation.  It is sort of like robot surgery on the opposite size scale.

I haven't mentioned what fascinated Alan.  It was his book.  He read the whole time on both tours.  Then he worried about how he was going to manage without the third book in the series.  So, after our tours, we headed towards lunch and a bookshop.  Lunch was in Chinatown, where we somehow ended up eating Japanese.  We got directions to a bookstore and Alan has the last three books in the Percy Jackson series so he doesn't have to be afraid of getting caught without a volume for the rest of the trip.  I hope.

Visitors to Melbourne are supposed to "shop 'til you drop," and we at least window shopped until we dropped for the rest of the afternoon.  The charm of the city is that it has arcades.  Melbourne has really wide streets--wide enough for a horse and dray to make a U-turn.  In spite of this planning, it also had very muddy and refuse clogged streets in those days.  The arcades were built like 19th century malls to keep ladies out of the muddy streets.  You can spontaneously turn down one and find dozens of little shops, and wind your way through to the other side of the block.  Laneways (ie. alleys) also can carry this pleasure of discovery and adventure.  The only trouble is. the merchandise we saw today was very expensive.  Alan came out of his book while we were walking, and he really liked the fashion he saw. He had sticker shock, though, and asked, "Don't they have a store like Target?" If they do, we didn't see it where we were today. 

JR got sick of the stores so we sent him back to the hotel on his own.  He got lost and had a good time discovering his way back.  He just told me he is proud of himself for this adventure.  I think its pretty cool that he did well with his free-range time.

St. Michael's Church:  I just thought it was pretty.

Mark had a good day too. I was fascinated by the news from the slick, short newspaper the conference publishes everyday.  An attention getting headline this morning:  "Science and religion agree- again...botany drops Latin."  It has taken 25 years of discussion, but new species, while still being named in Latin, will no longer have to have their technical descriptions in Latin when published.  Even more interesting to me:  It will also be acceptable to have the publication of a new species be in a paper that is is only electronic.  Some journals are only e-copies, and never paper.  By expanding the acceptable methods, the naming of new species will speed up, and this is important when the earth is facing a mass extinction.  The new policy will also level the playing field for botanists from developing countries where page charges plus the Latin were making publication very difficult.  So, in 2012, botanists are modernizing.  There is an aspect of botany that has a clear archival bend, considering the care that is taken to preserve specimens in herbaria.  Having botanists decide that electronic archives are safe for the written word is very significant.

We wandered out for a nice dinner and shared the day's adventures with each other.  It was rather refreshing to have two versions of the day--three if you count JR's adventures getting lost.  I am trying very hard to get Alan to eat something green.  I think he had a slice of kiwi from Mark's dessert garnish...not quite what I was aiming for, but tomorrow is a new day!