With brilliant red-orange flowers appearing intermittently throughout the warmer half of the year, Haemodorum coccineum (Haemodoraceae) is a fitting selection to represent multiple months. (Our web editor was too busy to do a new one each month, sorry!)

Commonly called Bloodroot, due to the colour of its underground parts, this attractive local plant grows a clump of strap-like leaves, sometimes mistaken for a grass or Lomandra species until its distinctive flowers appear.

The leaves often die back during the dry season and then regrow from the underground rhizome at the start of the next wet season.

Haemodorum coccineum can be easily grown in Townsville gardens, preferring moist but well-drained soil and partial or full sun. It makes a fine show if planted in dense groups.

Indigenous Australians used various Haemadorum species for traditional medicinal purposes and extracted a high-quality red dye from the flowers and roots.

In 2006 Haemodorum coccineum was favourably assessed in a government-funded study into its potential as a new cut-flower species, but it seems there has been no substantial commercial production as yet.

For much of the year, tea tree orchids Dendrobium canaliculatum (Orchidaceae) are quite inconspicious in the wild. If you notice them at all, you might chuckle at their incongruous appearance, rather like dryish bunches of small onions arranged on the branches of wetland Melaleucas (photo below) and other trees.

However, from about September to November, these small epiphytes put out their beautiful, dainty flowers and remain in bloom for many weeks. At a time when not much else was flowering, tea tree orchids were the botanical highlight of a recent walk near Mutarnee (photo below).

Among orchid growers Dendrobium canaliculatum have a reputation of being difficult to grow, but they are hardy plants in their natural habitat.

The Australian Tropical Rainforest Orchids website provides botanical details and informs us this species has been renamed Cepobaculum canaliculatum although the synonym Dendrobium canaliculatum is still widely used.

The Landcare revegetation area on Castle Hill provided a nice surprise this month (Sept 2021, photo below) when flowers appeared on several small Pavetta australiensis, only 8 months after they were planted as tubestock.

Pavetta australiensis (Rubiaceae) grows as an understory shrub in our drier rain forest areas, monsoon forests and vine thickets. It has attractive glossy foliage (first photo below) and in favourable years it puts on a stunning floral display, typically in late September (second photo below).

Pavetta australiensis has also proven very successful as a garden plant, commonly called Butterfly Bush. It needs good drainage but adapts to full sun or part shade. Its delicately fragrant flowers attract butterflies and the ripe black fruits provide food for native birds.

For botanical details see the database of Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants.

Dischidia nummularia (Apocynaceae) is a dainty native vine that grows as an epiphyte on paperbarks and other coastal trees in northern Queensland, sometimes in association with Myrmecodia species (ant-plants) and some native orchids.

In favourable situations, these plants develop an attractive cascade of rounded succulent leaves. People have likened Dischidia nummularia foliage to strings of coins or buttons, hence its common names ‘Money plant’ or ‘Button orchid” (although botanically it’s not an orchid).

Dischidia nummularia bears tiny creamy flowers at seemingly erratic intervals, easily overlooked in wild plants growing high in the trees. Their delicate beauty is best appreciated at eye-level, as I discovered when my plant in a hanging basket produced its first flowers this month.

These plants are seldom seen in cultivation although they are grown successfully by a few keen enthusiasts even in temperate latitudes, typically indoors or in well-sheltered locations.

Dischidia nummularia can be propagated from seed or small segments of stem. Both methods seem to require a good deal of luck and patience.

For botanical details see the Dischidia nummularia entry in the database of Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants

Townsville is outside the natural range of Myrsine subsessilis subsp. cryptostemon but a single specimen is growing very well in Anderson Gardens.

With masses of tiny flowers clustered along the stems, this plant made a splendid show at the time of our group’s July outing.

Small blue fruits can be expected to ripen in a few months. John’s photo below was taken several years ago in November.

In the wild Myrsine subsessilis subsp. cryptostemon is an uncommon rainforest shrub with a natural range from Paluma to the Endeavour River.

Curiously, the Anderson Park specimen has broader leaves (left in photo below) than the typical leaf shape (right, from Jackes 2005) for Myrsine subsessilis subsp. cryptostemon.

Myrsine subsessilis subsp. cryptostemon was one of several new Myrsine species and subspecies formally described by Betsy Jackes in 2005.
Ref: Jackes Betsy R. (2005) Revision of Myrsine (Myrsinaceae) in Australia. Australian Systematic Botany 18, 399-438.

After our wonderful outing to White Mountains National Park, it was impossible to pick “the best” among many fascinating plants we saw. Instead, our Plant of the Month is “the biggest” of our weekend discoveries.

Eucalyptus chartaboma is not widely known, although it is a Queensland endemic. Its scattered distribution in north Queensland includes the western section of White Mountains National Park which we visited on the second day of our trip. Many thanks to Peter for introducing us to this area and pointing out a number of species new to most of us.

The scientific name is derived from Greek (charte, of paper and bomos, base) and refers to thick papery bark covering the lower part of the trunk. The distinctive bark is also reflected in the tree’s common name, Queensland woollybutt.

Our visit was outside the flowering period of Eucalyptus chartaboma (Jan to April) but we were impressed by its heavy woody seed capsules. The “giant gumnuts” we found were just slightly smaller than the maximum size recorded, 75 x 65 mm.

Hopefully on a future visit we might see the brilliant orange flowers of Eucalyptus chartaboma. In anticipation, we can enjoy John’s photo below, taken in March some years ago.

Eucalyptus chartaboma looks very similar to some closely-related species in the Kimberley and Top End of NT. For botanical details see EUCLID Eucalypts of Australia online