I Love a Mallet in the Morning (and evening too)

Large mallets on the right survived a fire about 50 years ago that caused the thicket of younger plants to germinate

​Brown mallets (Eucalyptus astringens) are generally only found on breakaways.
Unlike other eucalypts, they are sensitive to fire. To reduce fire risk they stop most plants from growing underneath them.

Brown mallets deny water to other plants by 2 means:

• Mallet leaves and bark make the soil surrounding them highly water repellent, keeping the topsoil too dry for other plants.
• Mallets intercept rain in their canopy and channel it down steeply ascending branches to their stem where it is rapidly absorbed at the base of the tree. Tannins in the bark are thought to 'thin' the water so it passes more rapidly into the soil

Mallets rarely resprout after a bushfire, but die and drop large amounts of seed that germinates to form the dense  mallet 'whipstick' thickets. The trees gradually thin out until a few large ones remain, until the next bushfire restarts the cycle.

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Early summer is a wonderful time of the year to see wandoos and  brown mallets shedding their old bark to reveal gleaming cream and copper coloured trunks in the rising and setting sun.
If you sit on the Claypit walk breakaway bench that overlooks Narrogin, you will notice that old grey-brown bark of the whipstick mallets is shedding in curly flakes to reveal smooth coppery new bark. Individual mallets vary in the process, and the normally uniform array of smooth stems has become a ragged array of shapes and colours. And to top it off, Golden orb weavers have webs there too. Oh bliss!
So abandon your bed, TV, or mind numbing social media and embark on an early morning/evening pilgrimage to meditate amongst the mallets!
Om mani padme gum

Subdued colours in November

Ragged colourful appearance in January