The environment: science, ethics and communication
We visited Alligator Creek today. It was very beautiful after recent rain and more photos will appear here soon but the goanna we saw in the picnic ground gave us so much pleasure that it should have a post to itself.
It was a Lace Monitor, Varanus varius, and must have been nearly fully grown because it was about 1.7 m long and they only grow to 2.1 m, according to Wilson’s Field Guide to Reptiles of Queensland. Continue reading “Goanna at Alligator Creek”
This question arose from a somewhat cryptic sentence in the gardening column of our local newspaper, “The Tinaroo Bottlebrush (Melaleuca recurva but still sold as Callistemon recurvis) is a personal favourite…”
The question, of course, was, “Isn’t a Melaleuca a paperbark?” or words to that effect. A bit of digging (no, not in the garden) revealed the answers to a whole series of interconnected questions.
We’re dealing with two kinds of names of names for plants, common names and scientific (Latin) names, and both are problematic. The plants, however, are just as beautiful to us, and to the birds and butterflies, whatever they are called. Continue reading “Bottlebrush or paperbark? Callistemon or Melaleuca?”
The Townsville region received quite a deluge between mid February and early March, after a dry start to what we hoped would be a good Wet. Green Path recently posted photos of the Town Common after rain, and here are some from Hervey’s Range to the West of the city.
The waterfall photo above is the first chronologically. It was taken by Steve Coleman about March 5 Continue reading “Hervey’s Range after rain”
Bergstrom’s Orange
Carolyn Little, 2015
A book described on its back cover as a “contemporary thriller [which] explores the growing interest in biodiscovery and the modern crime of biopiracy, against the back-drop of the beauty and challenges of the Daintree World Heritage site … and [the] popular resort world of Port Douglas” recently leapt from the shelf of my local library into my hand. It lived up to its promise, too, being both entertaining and informative.
The (perfectly valid) scientific background to the story is a search in the Daintree rainforest for a botanical cure for the affliction known locally as the Daintree ulcer or Mossman ulcer. It is a nasty flesh-eating ulcer with no known prevention or cure, caused by a bug (Mycobacterium ulcerans) related to those which cause leprosy and tuberculosis. Continue reading “Bergstrom’s Orange, Daintree ulcers and rainforest”
I’m not going to claim credit for it, of course, but my post about rainwater tanks was followed almost immediately by the best rain Townsville has had for years, with totals like 250 to 600 mm over a week or so, depending on exactly where you looked. Ross Dam went from about 15% to over 80% – but I will say more about that in another post.
I visited the Town Common yesterday, very briefly, to see the difference the rain had made there. Continue reading “The Town Common after rain”