Merri meanderings in winter

We are now past the winter solstice, but it still feels like mid-winter. The days are slowly lengthening, but the skies have been mostly grey and the air chill with short days of wind and rain. Currently, in wombat (waring, July) cold season, we will soon be moving into guling orchid season (August) and the Merri Creek paths are quieter, although there are always some well rugged up souls to exchange smiles and greetings with.

The earth under the grass is cold, sodden and soft. Frosts are rare in the Merri Creek valley, though they still occur in the northern, more open, grasslands upstream, away from the built up inner suburbs. Some mornings see a lovely mist until the sun dispels the shroud and it seems everything is full of the green promise of life.

It really is wattle season now, with some species in almost full display and others budding up nicely. The mid-sized silver wattle tree (Acacia dealbata or muyan) is brightening the creek banks with it’s feathery grey/green leaves and creamy yellow balls of heady scent. This is not to be confused with the introduced NSW native, A. baileyana or Cootamundra, often seen as a street or garden tree. It is also flowering more brightly yellow now.

   
Acacia dealbata, Silver wattle

Acacia implexa or hickory wattle, is a small tree with sickle like “leaves” (phyllodes – or modified stems), which can sucker along the banks of the creek. It has a rough grey bark and is just starting to flower now with cream balls. Marilyn Bull, in the 4th edition (2014) of Flora of Melbourne describes it as a good screen or shade tree, especially if erosion control is needed. The larger, more upright, blackwood wattle (A. melanoxylon), with its darker more furrowed bark, will flower soon with its cream ball shaped flowers similarly arranged on short racemes.

Hedge wattle, a spreading prickly dense shrub (A. paradoxa) is mostly still in tight bud as I write, although I did find one that had just started to flower. No doubt by the time you read this, there will be more. Another prickly wattle shrub is A. verticillata or Prickly Moses. The phyllode is almost needle like and the flowers occur in spikes or ovoids – again this is a little later to flower, although there are a couple just starting to show.

Also about to flower is the tree violet (Melicytus dentatus). An unremarkable spreading shrub when not in flower. In a couple of weeks it will be the incredible honey scent emanating from rows of tiny cream bell shaped flowers hanging in little rows under spiky branchlets that will draw your attention.

A new little shrub to me is in the Fabaceae (pea) family – the Western Golden Tip – an open shrub, with trifoliate leaves on red stems and the “egg and bacon” type flowers, typical of this family, are just starting their display now.

Then, there is a lovely light climber (or occasionally a scrambling ground cover) Clematis microphylla, with its creamy star flowers festooning the naked branches of a dead wattle, or pushing up through the red spider flowers of the sharp shrubby Grevillea rosmarinifolia. The lime green long bells of Correa glabra are also out now. These last two and the hedge wattle are all great indigenous garden shrubs, offering cheery colour at this time and providing food and shelter for smaller nectar feeding birds.

Grevillea rosmarinifolia and Clematis microphylla

Other trees noticed flowering now are some of the Eucalypts and the beautiful Allocasuarinas with their very different male and female flowering forms
It’s a great season for getting out and about and feeling alive in the chill misty air.

Images: our thanks to Arimbi Winoto