Edith agreed.
‘One might think that rain had never fallen in these parts, were it not for an occasional suspicion of green in small areas that had benefited from slight showers,’ she wrote on a trip through the drought-stricken north of South Australia. ‘Occasionally large patches of “Salvation Jane” (or “Paterson’s Curse”) made bright purple pools, which momentarily cheered the eyes.’ Even this ‘rough little plant’ served its purpose, providing stock with ‘a last resort in times of drought’.
Or as Emerson put it, ‘A weed is just a plant whose true value has not yet been discovered.’
European-born naturalists and nature writers had long expressed concern about the destruction of native vegetation. Agricultural clearing certainly played a large part in that, but it was perhaps the semi-industrialised destructiveness of mining that made a particularly compelling case for early travellers like Ellen Clacy in 1852:
‘We now approached Bendigo. The timber here is very large. Here we first beheld the majestic iron bark, Eucalypti, the trunks of which are fluted with the exquisite regularity of a Doric column; they are in truth the noblest ornaments of these mighty forests. A few miles further, and the diggings themselves burst upon our view. Never shall I forget that scene, it well repaid a journey even of sixteen thousand miles. The trees had been all cut down; it looked like a sandy plain, or one vast unbroken succession of gravel pits – the earth was everywhere turned up – men’s heads in every direction were popping up and down from their holes. Well might an Australian writer, in speaking of Bendigo, term it “The Carthage of the Tyre of Forest Creek”.’
For Edith, this concern required a careful balancing act. She often loved the organism, but not its impact. She revelled in the ‘glorious song’ of the blackbird and admitted that ‘we rather like the starling’ while simultaneously recognising and resisting the invasive flood of sparrows, starlings and mynahs. She had a tolerant eye for ‘weeds’.
‘A plant is said to be a weed only when it gets in the farmer’s way,’ Edith explained. ‘Personally I look upon many weeds with a friendly eye remembering an older adage: “A weed keeps other weeds away”. The point is to choose one’s weeds.’
Wise advice for the gardener, perhaps less helpful for the conservation biologist.
Edith delighted in the willows of Healesville with their ‘gossamer of tenderest green that drifted in the clear air like an emerald cloud’, commenting on their propensity to spread themselves by seed and cuttings, whereby the willow ‘sails away on its mission of finding new lands to settle’.
Willows are one of Australia’s worst weeds. Their roots choke the rivers, stagnating and redirecting the water, eroding the surrounding banks. Their fallen leaves blanket the rivers in autumn, saturating the water with nutrients and starving it of oxygen. Their shade chokes the native vegetation of light, strangling any rivals. They are immensely thirsty, incredibly invasive and intensely competitive. They cost millions of dollars each year just to keep in check. I would never plant one near my dam.
But I still wish I could, for they are beautiful.
A willow tree by fellow Field Naturalists Club member Robert O’Brien
There is a new weed in the paddock. It’s been there for as long as I’ve lived here, but I didn’t know what it was before. Now that I know, I see it everywhere – thick asparagus-like stalks thrusting up between the grass like an invading army. I march across the paddock with a bucket and spade, digging up the tubers, careful to remove them before the flowers, with their myriad spores, open. By the late afternoon, I’ve filled three buckets full from the small strip of land at the top of the hill. I look back towards the setting sun and I can see all the ones I have missed, as if they have popped up as fast I can remove them, their stubby silhouettes jutting out on the horizon.
This weed is an orchid. A leek orchid, known as the weedy or African leek orchid here in order to distinguish it from the many local Prasophyllum leek orchids. Most conservationists know it as Monadenia after its scientific name Monadenia bracteata, although it has recently been reclassified as Disa bracteata. One of the risks of using scientific names.
Monadenia came from South Africa to Western Australia and Victoria sometime in the eighteenth century. But it only appeared in South Australia relatively recently. It was first reported in 1988 by Enid Robertson from the Native Orchid Society of South Australia. Enid called for a concerted campaign to try to eradicate the species before it gained a foothold. Hundreds of volunteers spent countless hours working through various parks, digging up tubers, recording their size, age and stage of development, plotting the progress of the invader. But it was too late. By 1991 the weed had already been reported through many of the reserves of the Adelaide Hills region. Despite all the best efforts of local conservation groups, the orchid is now a regular part of the Hills vegetation, added to the list of species subject to constant vigilance and control activities: blackberry, bridal creeper, gorse, broom, thistle, capeweed, Salvation Jane or Paterson’s curse, onion weed, soursobs, watsonia, quaking grass, to name just a few of the worst offenders.
In truth, Monadenia is not as bad as some of the other weeds. It does not particularly invade disturbed soil, it does not blanket vast areas, choking other plants and creating a monoculture. In the paddock, which is slashed in late spring, it probably makes no difference, being one of a large number of introduced species that compete with a rich mix of native grasses. But I find a handful along a track in the middle of a bed of spider orchids in the bushland, spreading through the understorey into the same areas as native orchid species. Native orchids are already rare, often endangered, and steadily
