General Chat

Stay safe Allan <3

Hope you are okay & family Barbara x

There was a news item on the late BBC last night showing ' incredible' signs of life returning to burnt bushes and charred trees......amazing :-)

Thank you all, the problem has now passed. As I said there were no impacts on us apart from loss of power and the noise of the aerial bombers. In fact an emergency evacuation centre was set up in Australind at the local leisure centre.

Belle, it is amazing how life springs back. Many plant species in Australia actually require heat and/or smoke to regenerate. Just one of those remarkable evolutions from generations of being exposed to such fires.

Alas, the same can't be said for the wildlife :-(

Allan .................

re vegetation regeneration

I was absolutely amazed on our last trip to Australia in 2006.

Relatives in Bendigo told us to drive back to to Adelaide via Hall's Gap NP. A fire had gone through there in January 2006, this was late September/early October, only 8 months later.

There were fresh green shoots sprouting all along the whole trunk and every branch and twig of every Eucalyptus tree in the fire-damaged area. Not to mention herbaceous plants and grasses.

It was amazing!

We're both botanists and neither of us had heard of that kind of regeneration before!!

Our fire-damaged areas take many years to regenerate ................... I know of one large area that was destroyed by fire about 15 years ago. Trees and shrubs are re-growing, but they're little more than waist-high even now. The trees that were destroyed were huge spruce, cedar, etc.

Give the Canadian flora another few thousand years or so and it too will evolve to cope with extreme heat.

The other side of the coin is that many species of flowers etc from the northern hemisphere have to be subjected to a cool environment (Fridge and/or freezer) before they can germinate here, at least in some areas.

Allan ...........

many have to be subject to cold treatment, or even repeated alternating cold/warm treatments, even in the UK and Canada ;-)

Mother Nature at her best :-D

I do wish that some people would realise that we are a part of Nature, not above it.