In identifying a plant one is often making a guess. An educated guess is still a guess and sometimes there is no correct answer. Many of the banksias belong to groups known as complexes. Members of the complex are seen as separate species but they can also hybridise – meaning that they may have intermediate forms. Any one plant may have a variety of different features, sometimes typical, sometimes weirdly different. Sometimes the scientific name serves to obscure the identity of a plant, take Banksia oblogifolia, it is supposed to have oblong shaped leaves, where the tip is blunt and the base of the leaf is relatively broad. As it happens the leaf shape is variable, and the most reliable identifying feature is a rusty coloured felt that covers the midrib and young branches. The scientific name may endure even if it is misleading because the history of the name is seen as important. The type specimens of banksia oblongifolia may have had particularly oblong leaves, but specimens from further afield may not fit in the box.
Behind the artfully decorated Maianbar bus stop there are half a dozen species of banksia within a short walk. To identify them it is handy to learn their names. The information within the name will jog the memory each time you try to identify a plant. Plants may have a common name and a scientific name, both names can be useful. The common name is least reliable, it will vary from place to place and can be pretty vague. The scientific name will slot the plant into the taxonomic hierarchy which will tell you much about the structure of the plant and how it relates to others. The scientific name can change when academics get busy, but it will lead back to the first scientific description of the plant. The scientific name is a double-barrelled binomial usually composed of latin or greek roots or a nod to a dignitary, explorer or a botanist. All of this is useful information.
In the photo below is Banksia spinulosa, the hairpin banksia. The old fashioned hairpin is now an uncommon object and so the common name is possibly not very useful. The generic name Banksia was conjured up in 1782 by Carl Linnaeus the younger, son of daddy Carl Linnaeus the swedish naturalist who invented the taxonomic system. The first half of the binomial honours Joseph Banks who collected the original type specimen in 1770 on Cooks “voyage of discovery”. The second part of the name refers to spines on the leaf tip.
Am liking the common name now that I see what an old fashioned hairpin from 1850 looks like. It has points on the end that would give you a little jab like little spines, whereas the modern bobby pin is not nearly so fearsome. But all jabbing aside the rounded end of either style of pin resembles the bent anthers of the rows of flowers.
May 15 2017
Tis the time of year when Banksia ericafolia is in full bloom. This shrub is common up on the heathland (the name erica refers to South African heath, which has a similar leaf shape). Other Banksias flower at different times providing honeyeaters with a reliable supply of food, but B, ericifolia is the most bountiful. Early settlers were shown how it was a source of bush tucker for aboriginal people. You can run your hand over the cone and lick off nectar or soak them in water for a sweet drink. So abundant is the nectar that you can see droplets glistening on the flowers and dripping from the branches, on the ground below there may be ants feeding. In the photo notice the damp patch at the base of the flower cone and droplets among the flowers.
Unlike social media the scientific literature does not repay the urge for instant gratification, the gems are buried deep.
Scan this text and follow the final link for a series of scientific papers on the natural history of the Royal National Park.
“The Linnean Society was founded in 1788 by botanist Sir James Edward Smith. The society derives its name from the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus, the ‘father of taxonomy’, who systematised biological classification through his binomial nomenclature. He was known as Carl von Linné after his ennoblement, hence the spelling ‘Linnean’, rather than ‘Linnaean’. The society had a number of minor name variations before it gained its Royal Charter on 26 March 1802, when the name became fixed as “The Linnean Society of London”. In 1802, as a newly incorporated society, it comprised 228 fellows. It is the oldest extant natural history society in the world. Throughout its history the society has been a non-political and non-sectarian institution, existing solely for the furtherance of natural history” Gage A.T. and Stearn W.T. (1988) A Bicentenary History of the Linnean Society of London, Linnean Society of London, p. 148
The Linnean Society of NSW
FOUNDED 1874. INCORPORATED 1884. ‘NATURAL HISTORY IN ALL ITS BRANCHES.’
Natural History of the First National Park
A Symposium presented by the Linnean Society of NSW and National Parks & Wildlife Service was held in the Auditorium of the Visitor Centre, Kamay Botany Bay National Park 29 September – 1 October 2011.
Having the use of a photographic drone opens up possibilities for good not evil. What could be healthier than counting animals for the greater good? Can I just say no migratory birds were distressed in the making of these images and no people were given cause to panic. The shots were taken in the early morning light with the sun low in the east casting long shadows across the water. The tiny tadpole creatures you see in the picture are in fact fiddler rays which are usually under a metre in length. By comparing two photographs taken sequentially of the same spot it is easy to see them move about. No doubt there were some rays in this photo who were moving too slowly to be observed or still hidden in the seagrass. Would I be making a wild guess to suggest that there are dozens of fiddler rays in the larger context? Possible hundreds?
The sand flats of Deeban Spit resembles a lunar landscape pockmarked with craters. All agree that they are a sign of life, but there is some mystery as to which form of life is active here. There are the obvious human makers of holes who descend on a fine fishing day to pump bait from the sand. They carry a stainless steel cylinder to jab into the wet sand and extract a core of sand which is then dumped on the surface for inspection. The fisher person is only interested in finding nippers, the ghost shrimp Trypaea australiensis. The nipper is a bountiful little crustacean that is a natural food source for estuarine fish and makes good live bait. Research done here in 2004 estimated that 4500 nippers are extracted from the sand in Maianbar on a typical weekend day in summer. That is a lot of nippers and a lot of holes made in the sand. The good news is that despite the pumping less than 2% of the total stock of nippers are removed by bait pumping. (Rotherham 2004) And yet this does not explain the vast bulk of holes in the sand. The sand is like a whiteboard, each incoming tide goes some way to erasing the marks made before. Holes made last summer may be hard to find. Depending on the strength of the current and the action of the water all holes will be filled and levelled in time. Yet new holes appear, thousands of holes, even when there is no fishing and pumping for bait. Fresh holes appear in the winter when a fisher person is not seen for weeks. Other life is obviously at work.
Fishermans Bay looking south along Yenabilli Point
If I was to begin my life again as a student in search of serious study I could do worse than measure all the holes on Deeban Spit. Each imprint in the sand is a sign of life that communicates some activity. The sand reveals an interactive pattern of movement, of feeding, of hunting and hiding. The traces in the sand can be deciphered and the holes would be the basis of this study.
At the outset I would probably try to save myself some effort by finding a system to sample the holes, then I could avoid measuring every single hole and extrapolate answers from a limited study. This need to form an answer by sampling is central to scientific research of all kinds and is in itself a science, call it statistics. If the entire sandflat is one uniform canvas evenly covered in holes it would be easy to sample, a study of one small area could be scaled by multiplication to arrive at an answer for the whole area. This would be too simple and no fun at all. The real world is rarely uniform and patterns of all types are recognisable. Perhaps the most useful pattern in statistical studies is the idea of the random pattern, where there is no particular order in things. In physics this might be compared to entropy and the famous second law of thermodynamics in which the universe winds down to a bland nothing-much-happening-here lifeless energy-free state. Life itself is a system of order and living things are not often following random paths. And so we can use the random concept as a tool to measure living systems. By comparing measurements taken from the real world to random patterns we can assess whether there is some order that needs investigation. This is the basis of fundamental statistical models, is there a variation in the real numbers that differs from a hypothetical random set of numbers? If you can believe this then you can believe in science as it is practiced today.
Incoming tide erasing fresh holes. Whelks emerging to feed.
Back to the holes.
Some guesswork
1/ I think the holes would fall into size categories – there would not be a random pattern of holes from pinprick sized to the size of Fishermans bay itself. There would be clusters of holes that conform to different types of animals. The burrows of nippers would cluster around one range of sizes and the holes of soldier crabs would cluster around another range of sizes. All the animals that make an imprint in the sand would leave a set of holes that would form groups of numbers that are not random. There may be overlap between different animals, but there would be distinct size classes.
2/ The distribution of the holes across the landscape would not be random. Different animals have different ranges and so we would not expect to find evidence of all animals in all places. We would expect to find clusters of holes in different zones of the environment.
These two simple expectations form the basis of ecological study; the abundance and distribution of life. But a theoretical framework is complimented by the simple act of observation. I have seen animals make similar marks to these and so I believe that these marks are made in a similar way. A little faith is always necessary.
Holes of one size class are easy to count – 25 (give or take)
100 stingray-sized holes (but are they all made by stingrays?)500 holes10 000 holes
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