Some of you may remember Jarryd Bailey here on the blog, who came to study at Crataegus Bonsai a few years back. He lives in Tasmania, which is about as far south as you can go before you run out of Eucalypts and are into the pterodroma petrels sailing over the cooling ocean.
I’ve been in Australia for the past week. Primarily for their National Bonsai Convention in Canberra (pronounced CAN-burra, not, as I first attempted it, CanBEARa), which is this weekend. I arrived early—my preferred “get over jet-lag” technique is to immediately get out hiking for some tree watching and bird watching, which doubled as an excuse to hang out with Jarryd Bailey.
Jarryd Bailey in his preferred habitat.
The northern part of Tasmania from airplane height, which isn’t unlike the southern part—full of lakes.
I’d seen what Jarryd was up to on Instagram and had to see it all in person—his work, and the insane and beautiful Tasmanian natives he prefers. We met at the airport outside the quiet main city Hobart, Jarryd looking as scruffily dashing as when he visited me with his fiancé Hannah in 2018.
Jarryd pointed out his truck in the parking lot, “Here we are.”
At first I thought it had a half roll-bar, but then I saw it was a kind of air vent at the top of the windshield, something you’d maybe add to a high-performance vehicle to improve combustion at high speeds.
“It’s a snorkel, for when you drive into a swollen river.”
I gave him a quick look. “You’re kidding.”
“No, really,” he laughed, “it comes in handy on collecting trips. So a flooded engine doesn’t die.”
Given the number of snorkels I saw from a quick scan of the airport parking lot I knew he wasn’t kidding. Which led to wonderment that large numbers of Australians led truly adventuresome lives battling turbulent waters on the way to the office—and that if you don’t arrive damp or with a leech attached you’re not very local. (This was supported by the complete absence of snorkels on the airport rental cars I later saw up in Cairns.)
Jarryd’s business Montane Bonsai is in part selling the native plants he collects. A hike was in the offing to see these unusual species in the wild.
Right out of the airport we snaked up a mountain road and went hiking. At about 3,000 feet we found these white trunked trees, which are Eucalypts.
While walking around this lake, ogling otherworldly plants, we saw a platypus splashing about. A platypus a curiosity of an animal, which I used to think was a marsupial. But it’s a monotreme, which is a mammal that lays eggs and then nurses the young with milk, and not a marsupial which gives live birth then carries the young in a pouch. Echidnas—like a spiky hedgehog that eats ants—are the only other monotremes.
With its duck-like bill, a platypus isn’t unlike a furry bird that swims. And much like the odd plants, you could wonder what planet you’d wandered onto.
Platypus. Image courtesy of Australian Museum
Dicksonia sp, tree fern. We took a walk into a forest full of big Eucalypts. And there in the understory were these tree ferns, which form a significant trunk.
Underneath the leaves it proves it’s a fern, not a palm—these balls later turn brown and release spores.
Eucalyptus regnans, part of the tall canopy.
Some of these Eucalypts were beyond huge, 200+ feet high.
Eucalypt bark, that falls off in long, snake-like pieces.
Southern Beech, a deciduous tree. It’s not Australia’s only deciduous tree, but Nothofagus gunnii is the only temperate deciduous tree. And it looks pretty smart up in the highlands in its autumnal beauty, with convincing and long-lasting deadwood.
Another plant that Jarryd appreciates for bonsai, Hakea epiglottis. This one leaves us northern hemispherians flatfooted, with nothing similar in our neck of the globe.
OK, plant quiz time… Looks maybe like Hinoki or similar, yes? Well, not even close: Pherosphaera hookeriana.
A juniper, right? And again we are fooled: Diselma archerii. A conifer in Cupressaceae, but not a juniper.
And this one? Maybe like small podocarp? It’s Olearia pinafolia. At least the genus gives us something to hang onto, olive. But it’s unrelated to olives. The Pine-daisy is in the Asteracae family.
Aha! A manzanita. Or something. But no: Tasmannia lanceolata, Pepper Tree.
And this beauty? Maybe we stop guessing at this point and just listen. Jarryd answers: Leucapogon paviflorus, Coast Beard Heath. Spectacular specimen! Ocean waves lap the boulder it is on.
What a study in sage greens and grays in the high heaths. Eucalypts are in the background, showing their “parachute” foliar pads.
Multiple plants from the heathlands in one accent: Yellow Cushionplant, Phyllachne colensoi, Sage Cushionplant Pterygopappus lawrencei, Tasmanian Cushionplant, Abrotanella forsteroides. (Thanks Jarryd for the names throughout this post—)
Jarryd shared a few bonsai “on the way to find out”, those almost ready for styling. Eucalyptus vernicosa, Varnished Gum. Delicious deadwood here.
Another about ready for work, Melaleuca virens, Lime Bottlebrush.
Another Varnished Gum.
Leptospermum nitidum, Shiny Teatree (left), Hakea lisosperma, Mountain Needlewood.
After a short few days with wild trees and wild bonsai it was time for the next port of call. The 120-year old farmhouse Jarryd and Hannah had been restoring had begun to feel like home, as any place will when surrounded by walnut and apple trees, sporting resident fairy wrens and bordering a stream in the quiet countryside.
We were up at 4, and it was black on the way to the airport. The truck lights lit up what looked like a gray bag in the road. Jarryd slowed down. “Wow, you’re lucky, these are rare.”
It was a Tawny Frogmouth, a bird in the nightjar family like nighthawks and whippoorwills which use their immense mouths to catch insects on the wing at night. And we’d just blinded it with the lights, blinking slowly as if it couldn’t believe day had come so fast. I’d done some birdwatching in bird-lifelisting / jetlag-avoidance mode, but this last Tasmanian nature treat was a real sendoff to Cairns, Queensland, to explore the oldest rainforest in the world.
Next week, highlights from the Daintree Rainforest and the Canberra convention—coming up.