Foxes Lair
  • Home
  • About
    • About Foxes Lair
    • History
    • Landscape and Soils
  • Things To Do
    • Picnic Spots
    • Walk Trails
    • Visit the Arboretum
    • Ride Your Bicycle
    • Scavenger hunt
    • Geocaching and Orienteering
  • Things To See
    • Wildflowers
    • Trees in the Narrogin district
    • Birds
    • Vertebrates
    • Narrogin spiders scorpions ticks
    • Fungi and lichens
  • Foxes Lair seasonal guide
    • December to March
    • April - May
    • June-July
    • August
    • September
    • October
    • November
  • Other great reserves
    • Railway Dam
    • Yilliminning Rock
    • Old Mill Dam
    • Yornaning Dam
    • Contine Hill
    • Highbury Reserve
    • Boyagin Rock
    • Barna Mia
    • Toolibin Lake
    • Newman Block
    • Harrismith Nature Reserve
    • Candy Block
    • Tutanning Nature Reserve
  • 1Foxypress
    • Foxypress
    • Vanishing Farms
  • Contact

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

8/1/2016

0 Comments

 
PictureLarge 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.

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
Picture
Subdued colours in November
Picture
Ragged colourful appearance in January
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Doug Sawkins is a friend of Foxes Lair 

    Categories

    All
    Animals Other
    Birds
    Disorders Plant Animal
    Fungi Lichens
    History
    Insects Bugs Other Arthropods
    Landscapes Soils
    Other Reserves And Places
    Reptiles
    Spiders Other Arachnids
    Tree
    Walks Other Facilities
    Wasp
    Wildflowers Orchids
    Wildflowers Other Summer Autumn
    Wildflowers Other Winter Spring
    Wildflowers Parasitic

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    May 2012
    March 2012
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    April 2011

© 2015 All Rights Reserved. Doug Sawkins, Australia.