Appreciations (19) … Another woolly green recovery

Appreciations (19) … Another woolly green recovery


Torrey Orton
Jan 10, 2010


I forgot something now very strikingly present in Melbourne. Deciduous trees of some sorts - especially elms – can recover from near terminal drought conditions like those in Melbourne over the last two years. Their manner of recovery is quite the same as eucalypts do from fire (see below).

(Photo by Auscape_JLR08503)

In various parks hereabouts (West Hawthorn and Burnley parks and for instance) there are 100+ year old elms sprouting all around their major limbs and trunks much in the after fires eucalypt fashion. The elms sprout more densely, an impression partly arising from leaf colour (darker greens than most gums) and partly from leaf shape – oval for elms vs. elongated for gums. The underlying elm limb structures are almost totally eclipsed by the greenery.

It always amazes me what I miss in the world, and at the same time how alike the worlds are eventually. Furry green regrowth both from fire and drought, two afflictions one would expect to have terminal outcomes for the respective indigenous plants. The drought response never occurred to me, probably because it isn't often seen in Melbourne except in the city and then only twice I can recall now in my 38 years here. It never comes into our view in the countryside because things like elms are only seen in the towns and we are usually headed for the mountains. There are, of course, plenty of drought conditions in our immediate countryside, with increasing thoroughness of late.


However, as the farmer says, it will rain, and it has with some intensity (at least 25 mm per drop) on four occasions over the last four months of last year. It is this expectable, but recently anomalous, natural excess that revived the elms. Not all have made the comeback reliably, some standing with only slight outbursts of woolly green and excesses of sprigless sticks and limbs. These are usually at the outer and upper edges of the natural flow of rain.


The countryside, as much as the city parks and our own garden, are the greenest they have been for years. Usually they would be burned out by sun and heat. We've had both, to some extremes already the last two months, but the grass is still fresh.


Enjoy…before Adelaide's weather comes to us – endless days over 35C.