Bushwalk Australia

Put your fagus pictures here!!!

A starter from a couple of weeks ago when the BWT strollers conquered Mt Murchison. We were surprised to find quite a lot by the track from about 1/2 way up. Parts were just starting to turn:



Gerry

what a wonderful pictures!

thanks for sharing those pictures...

[image removed by admin]

-- Hall =D

Hi Hall...

This topic is specifically for pictures of Nothofagus gunnii which is the only deciduous plant endemic to Australia. I'm not sure if you realised this (being that you're from some other country, according to your member profile).

Posting whatever image is returned by Google image search for "fagus" (or for "fagus sylvatica purpurea pendula" or anything else similar) is not appropriate, and is contrary to the purpose of the "Gallery" forum.

Please post only your own images, or those you have permission to post. Your other two posts to other gallery topics have been removed as they merely repeated photographs already linked to by other members and in general were not relevant to the topics to which you posted them. Sorry of any inconvenience.

Headed off to Cradle today half expecting the Fagus to have been blown away. Surprised to find that it still not all out! As it was cloudy, I only did the Dove Lake circuit!





Gerry

Just back from the Tarn Shelf at Mt Field - most of the fagus has turned but there are still the odd patches lower down near Lake Fenton that are still green. Suspect it wont last much longer.

Haven't seen crowds like that at Mt Field before. I guess everyone was there for the local attraction.

Some fagus on Mt Olympus earlier this week

Last night I went to Hansons Peak because there was a big bright moon.
I took these.
No artificial light, no daylight.


The moonlight caused some passing cloud to over-expose in the sky in this image.
9 minutes 20 seconds exposure, F5.6, ISO400, 12mm. 6:33 pm.



Looking across Dove Lake to Marions Lookout, the Saucepan in the sky above.
3 minutes exposure, F8, ISO400, 12mm. 7:25 pm.



A few stars above Marions Lookout which is slowly being consumed by the cloud. The focal point in this image is the centre of the bush, which stands out really well against the background due to the narrow depth of field, the leaves on the Fagus bush are quite detailed. This effect is lost somewhat in this image size reduction. HERE is a small crop of the bush at 100%.
EDIT - It's interesting to see how soft this image looks here. HERE it is on another site.
4 minutes 45 seconds exposure, F5.6, ISO400, 24mm. 7:58 pm.



Typical of Cradle Mountain, doing its best to try and hide in the clouds.
This one is also looking much softer than the original.
4 minutes 20 seconds exposure, F8, ISO400, 28mm. 8:27 pm.
Images are clickable.

Superb Adam, It's amazing that the Fagus is still out. It is very late.

Gerry

Interesting shots adam, fantasy like with those clouds and the slightly off colour sky.

yeah there was still some greenish/yellow early fagus still out around the Labyrinth last week. some reason for this or is the date of colour change pretty variable anyway?

Great shots, Adam... amazing that it's all by moonlight.

Nick S wrote: some reason for this or is the date of colour change pretty variable anyway?

Thanks for the comments.

As for the late change, I suspect it is variable. We didn't have much of a summer. I think of it like grapes - if budburst happens at the same time but the fruit takes longer to ripen because of a cooler summer, picking will be later.
So if previous seasons were "normal" and summer was coolish, the leaves took longer to finish their "green" cycle, so they were later to brown off in the change in season (days getting shorter and cooler).
But that's my take on it, and I'm no botanist. Someone might have a better idea.

As for "pretty variable anyway?", I have to admit that this year is the first time I have actually made it into the fagus at this time of year, normally I'm too early, or late.

Early (2009) -


Late (2007 vintage) -

Great photos Adam.... Unreal.

Son of a Beach wrote:Hi Hall...

This topic is specifically for pictures of Nothofagus gunnii which is the only deciduous plant endemic to Australia. I'm not sure if you realised this (being that you're from some other country, according to your member profile).

[Pedant] It's the only winter deciduous native Australian plant. There are tropical and arid-land species which drop leaves regularly during times of low rainfall. [/Pedant]
Hmmmm, noice. I'll be back when I've processed a few from the last trip . . .

Fair enough. I guess it all depends on your definition of deciduous. My dictionary says:

adjective
(of a tree or shrub) shedding its leaves annually.

On it's way out now, but there were still some patches around up at Mt Field yesterday - seeing it in the snow was a bit spesh!

This is something I've never understood. Gunnii is often quoted as the ONLY winter decidous tree in the country.
Two other trees that lose their leaves in winter are the Red Cedar (Toona ciliata) and the White Cedar (Melia azedarach) from NSW and QLD. A few Eucalypts in tropical QLD also annualy lose their leaves prior to the wet season. Then there is also semi-decidous trees like the Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta) and the Illawarra Flame (Brachychiton acerifolius).
Can anybody explain this?

I was told the 'only endemic deciduous' tree in a botany lecture, but it's quite possible that the lecturer was unaware of the bigger picture (and hence my ignorance of any others). Or maybe I just remembered it incorrectly.

You're not alone mate, most Tasmanians I have met at Cradle seem to think this too. For a while it was listed on the PWS website as "Australia's only deciduous tree" and also in the Cradle Mt Plant Identikit. The Cradle Mt Lodge Slide Show presentation also used to sell Fagus as the sole deciduous tree and a few other places too. I'm interested in how this all got started.

There are a few more in there somewhere, I just have to find them. This was at Hartz.

Son of a Beach wrote:Fair enough. I guess it all depends on your definition of deciduous. My dictionary says:

adjective
(of a tree or shrub) shedding its leaves annually.

Joel wrote:This is something I've never understood. Gunnii is often quoted as the ONLY winter decidous tree in the country.

Nothofagus gunnii is an example of a winter deciduous tree in the sense that we normally think of deciduous tree - its leaves colour in autumn and fall off as the season gets cooler. It is endemic to Tasmania (i.e. found only in Tassie).

Other native Australian trees are also deciduous in winter, but it is not clear that this is a response to a colder season. White Cedar (Melia azedarach), is native to Australia and South East Asia and the leaves turn yellow in autumn. Red Cedar (Toona ciliata) which is native to southern Asia from Afganistan to Papua New Guinea and Australia looses its leaves in late winter to early spring. Both these trees naturally occur in Australia, but are also found in other countries.

The Illawarra Flame Tree (Brachychiton acerifolius), Coral Tree (Erythrina phlebocarpa), Boab Tree (Adansonia gibbosa) and Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta) and a number of Queensland Eucalypts are examples of Monsoonal deciduous trees.

"Unlike rainforest elsewhere in Australia, a large proportion of the rainforest tree species in hot, seasonally dry ('monsoonal') climates are deciduous, a habit which may assist them in avoiding water stress. Unwin and Kriedemann (1990) showed that leaf water potentials of the deciduous tree Melia azederach never fell below 2.0MPa during the dry season. However deciduousness varies considerably among different types of monsoon forests... in the 16 types of monsoon forest... in the Northern Territory... the percentage of deciduous species varied from 16% to 56% " (Australian rainforests: Islands of green in a land of fire, D.M J.S Bowman).

Hope this helps. I guess you need to choose your words carefully.

PS: Sorry about interrupting the gallery. I'll let Nik decide if the conversation should be moved eslewhere.

Thanks alot walkintas. That makes sense now.

Interesting, all this...
I got my explanation from the Parks site -
http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=3244

It is Australia's only winter-deciduous tree, and you will find it nowhere else in the world except Tasmania.

walkinTas wrote:I guess you need to choose your words carefully

tasadam wrote:Parks site -

It is Australia's only winter-deciduous tree, and you will find it nowhere else in the world except Tasmania.

Walked into Meston over the weekend....

My spirits were lifted when we approached the decent into Meston and were greeted with pure gold. Here's a few images taken with the point and shoot, the DSLR came out a few times once we arrived at the hut... That's when the blizzards kicked in!



Baby Nothofagus Gunnii


I was surprised to see them still glowing, although It was interesting to note how many had their leaves blown off on the walk out.


Saw some green foliage too, but was most impressed to find these...


Last one, branching out and copping the brunt of the front...


Cheers,
Beevor

Nice photo's! One of them looked sort of similar, and when I looked through my trip photos for Mt Murchison on April 9, I happened to have taken a photo in almost the exact same spot as Gerry (first post in this thread). I guess Gerry you were among the previous party mentioned in the log book - around April 4, so you can see how much things changed in four or five days. There was that cold snap in between though (which I experienced first hand on Moonlight Ridge, that's another story...)

Thanks Swifty. Quite a diference. Thanks all for the quality content.

Gerry

I hope it's not too late, I just got around to sorting these:

Saying goodbye to Windermere:


And saying goodmorning to Cradle: