Palm Forest

This elegant piece of woodland grows in the driest (relatively) part of the swamp and consists largely of palms, with their long grey stocking trunks and a fluffy green tutus at the top. Beautiful, but it was quite a worrying experience walking through as the wind had got up and the dead palm fronds were becoming detached and dropping with a loud and sudden vertical rush through the vines followed by a thump – some of them are 10 feet long with a heavy base so contusion, if not concussion, was a possibility. Many of the palms had huge swags of cream or orange fruit hanging from them, also dropping sporadically, but less lethally.
 The thing to keep remembering about these forests is that although there are a number of ways to classify and sub-divide them, it is the sheer overwhelming number of tree species, each with associated flora and fauna that make them so special. In Cumbria, along with the rest of the UK we have about 35 native trees, and that’s pretty complex and amazing I think. Here there are over 1000, and that’s not including shrubs and all the other plants, lichens, fungi etc. and more being discovered.

Better get a copy of John Beasley’s ‘Plants of Tropical North Queensland’, the recommended beginner’s book – for the basic 485 key plants!