Another Crassula, this one sits right next to Crassula “Gollum” in the garden. Looking at them side by side it’s clear they are very closely related, I can imagine a single mutation caused the leaves of the Jade Plant to curl back upon themselves, and there we have the “gollum”. Evolution in action.
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Crassula Gollum is a south African native that is popular nurserys. It is a small shrub growing to only 1m tall with thick spongy branches The leaves are tube shaped succulent terminating with a red tipped suction cup like structure at the tips.
The name “Gollum” is in reference to J.R.R Tolkein’s charcter from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I’ve also seen them refered to as “Shrek’s ears”, it’s a pretty good description.
They must be pretty hardy, the one in our garden survives well with no watering in a shallow sandy soil bed on top of a sandstone slab. Will regularly gets in behind it and breaks of a branch or two as well.
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Jess and I took a trip down the back to inspect the sewer on the weekend, all looking good, there is no smell now. This Tea Tree was growing on the large flat sandstone outcrop near to the Broadleaf Grass tree. With it’s distinctive flowers and scented leaves I’m certain it’s a tea tree but I’m not so sure about the species. My guess is it’s a Paperbark Tea Tree, it’s flowers, leaves and habitat are consistent. The scientific name “trinervium” is in reference to the 3 prominent veins in each leaf, you can see them in the photo. At the time I took the picture I didn’t take note of it’s distinguishing feature though, it’s bark, I’ll have to go back to check it out.
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Xanthorrhoea arborea
“A grass tree to 4m tall, with an aerial trunk” – NPOS p.278
Another unique and distinctive plant of the Australian bush. Grass trees have a short stout trunk that is often burned black from previous bush fires terminating with a dense tuft of long grass like leaves radiating from the crown. They are very slow growing at a rate of only 1cm per year, that makes a little 30cm tall plant almost as old as me! They make up for it in life span living up to 600 years old. Every year grass trees sprout a large ( up to 2m ) woody spike from the center of their leafy crown. The top section of the spike is densely covered in small nectar rich flowers.
They were a very useful plant to Aboriginies, the nectar from the flowers can be licked off, or the entire flower head soaked in water to make a sweet drink, enjoyed fresh or slightly fermented. The flower spikes were uses as spear shafts and resin could be collected from the trunks and the leaf basses and processed to be used for tools and weapons.
I’ve always wanted a grass tree in the garden, I recently bought one from a local nursery. It’s a Xanthorrhoea johnsonii which I’ve now learned is more of a Northern NSW and Queensland species, I hope it does ok here. But not too well, don’t want it colonizing the bush and competing with the native ones!
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