Greetings fellow Foxies,
Have you ever noticed grainy looking protuberances on the trunks of small rock sheoak trees? They belong to the caterpillar of a Cryptophasa species wood moth. They are also called hermit moths and Cryptophasa means ‘eating in private’ (scientists enjoy using cryptic language). 
The caterpillar lives alone in a purely residential burrow in a tree branch that has a covering of silk, frass (a polite word for poo) and wood borings. At night it drags live needles into its burrow attaching them with silk to the entrance and munches away in safety. They pupate in the burrow and then emerge to mate.
They don’t have much effect on the tree but provide entry for pathogenic fungi.
Cryptophasa is a genus in the family Xylorictidae, that has similarities to family Oecophoridae.(concealer moths)
Both have moths with hairless grubs and moths have long antennae and strongly curved labial palps (look like antennae but lower down the head). Xylorictidae grubs tend to have burrows in wood. Cryptophasa often make webby nests from leaves or bark, but there is overlap between families.

Greetings fellow Foxies, 
Astrolomas and leucopogons have are some of the earliest plants to flower in the growing season.
Most astrolomas have been reclassified to genus Styphelia. They are low shrubs or ground covers with long tubular flowers, which produce fleshy berries called drupes. I used to think that the flowers were pulled out by animals but discovered that developing drupes gradually push out the flowers as they develop. The five species in Foxes Lair are shown below

Astrolomas/ styphelias are bush tucker plants. Recently I met a Noongar family that showed me how to find the berries amongst the kick bush (Styphelia acervata) prickly leaves. The name comes from early settlers kicking the prostrate bushes over to see if ripe berries were underneath. Ripe berries are pale with sweet slightly gluey flesh. The green  berry below is not quite ripe but still slightly sweet. Bobtail skinks and bronzewing pigeons love them! Styphelia pallida is a very similar plant with more erect straggly growth.

Astroloma serratifolium occurs on Yilliminning gravels

There are 3 Leucopogons in Foxes Lair, each with tiny short tubular flowers with feathery ends. Leucopogon fimbriatus flowers from July to September on the flats near the claypit. Styphelia (ex Leucopogon) conostephoides on gravelly soils is easy to miss because the flowers are so tiny. Styphelia (ex Leucopogon propinqua) is a lovely green low shrub that grows on deep sandy granitic soils near the Granite Walk.

​Greetings fellow Foxies, 
The arboretum is a great place to see how diverse eucalypts can be, with one feature being whether/how they shed their bark each summer.
Eucalyptus leptopoda; Merredin mallee (formerly Tammin mallee, pegs 194 to 199) is common on gravel and sandplain kwongan soils in the eastern wheatbelt. These soils have just a few eucalypts because of an unpenetrable silcrete hardpan in the deep subsoil. Merredin mallees occur in spots where their roots have gone through cracks in the hardpan. They have grey/white smooth bark with darker strips of old bark. Long shreds of shed bark up to 3 metres long hang down from upper branches of plants in the arboretum, to reveal light-copper new bark that gradually turns grey-white.
Mallees are adapted to cope with regular fires by regenerating from a large lignotuber root. The ones herehave yet to develop these.They have shaggy-bark stem bases and long spindly stems.
In February/March profuse white flowers attract bees and flower wasps.
For more information on eucalypts you can’t go past the brilliant book "Eucalypts of Western Australia’s wheatbelt" by Malcolm French.