The Gumby Gumby Medicine Tree

Shade near the salt lake

A whiteness all shimmering

And shade in the Pilbara

By red rock simmering

A weeping green willow

Where few people go

And desert winds blow

Where the creeks rarely flow

I rest in the shade

Like the red kangaroos

Cool under leafiness

While the outside world stews

I first came across gumby-gumby medicine tree in the Pilbara in 1980s. We called this incongruously lush and beautiful tree by its Latin name of Pittosporum phylliraeoides and I collected large volumes of its brilliant red seeds for use in mine-site revegetation. It was years later in Queensland that I heard about a miraculous medicine tree called Gumby-gumby. It's leaves were being commercially harvested for medicinal tea and it was being researched by a number of Universities. I have long been interested in bush medicines and soon discovered that the plant in question was Pittosporum angustifolium. This species had previously been lumped with the  Pittosporum phylliraeoides I was used to but recently split into its own species. I consulted my reference books, including the magnificent Traditional Aboriginal Medicines of the Northern Territory, written by the Aboriginal Communities of the Northern Territory, and discovered that the Pitjantjatjara People called it Kumpalypa and used it to treat sore muscles and bruises. The bright red seeds were ground to make an oily preparation which was massaged into the affected area. The online information about Gumby-gumby seemed largely confined to the use of its leaves as a medicinal tea. I could not find information about the use of the seed to treat muscle-pain and decided to experiment. I eventually landed on a brilliant orange infusion of seed in coconut oil. A friend confirmed that the bright colour was Beta-carotene and it was stable in the soap making process. It creates brilliant-orange soap. It was also marvellously effective in treating sore joints and muscles. I have now been giving it to friends for a couple of years and it is proving to be highly effective on sore backs, sore knees and sore muscles. In my personal experience  it is at least as effective as Ibruprofen and it works in the same way by reducing inflammation.  I have now decided to make it more broadly available and have set up a website. It's great stuff and can be ordered through www.envirowizard.solutions.

Carpet Snake

There is a magic carpet

In our ancient country house

That mostly lies unmoving

As quiet as a mouse

With blotched and mottled patterns

It stretches down the hall

And sometimes you might see it

Slither up the wall

It defends us from the carpet mouse

That spreads across the land

A carpet mouse constrictor

Is really very grand

Photo of Murray-Darling Carpet Python from Wikipedia showing the distinctive thermo-receptive pits.

Carpet snakes are widespread across Australia and the island of New Guinea but unfortunately they are not as common as they once were. There is a single species (Morelia spilota)  but seven subspecies in Australia. The one in our area is the Inland Carpet Python (subspecies metcalfei) which inhabits the Murray Darling Basin. Carpet Snakes are large pythons reaching 4 metres in length and weighing more than 15 kg. Our neighbour was very excited about a large one that had moved into a tree near his farm-house but sadly by the time we arrived there yesterday to look at it it had been killed by what is likely to be a fox. Apart from being a magnificent animal they are very useful in keeping down mice which is very important in this year of the mice plague. A carpet of mice is a very frightening sight. A distinctive feature of the Carpet Snake is the conspicuous row of thermo-receptive labial pits (underside of the mouth) which they use to detect the heat of warm-blooded prey. Like mice! Now I must be very quiet so I don't disturb the mottled rug stretching down our hall. 

Blue Swimmer

If you're feeling restless
Or a trifle blue
Head off to the coast
Where the sea and crabs are blue

Be where the crabs
In seagrass fill
Your vision
Wall to wall

But beware a crab
Can nip you
If you dare
To make a grab

All of us can remember a time when the sea teemed with bounty. A Swan River in the 1980s full of crabs and prawns. Rock-pools at Lennox Head full of octopus. Crayfish wall to wall along the ledges north of Carnarvon. And then all at once without anyone noticing they are gone, or almost so. But it doesn't have to be like this and Spencer Gulf is a great example of the possible. It's truly uplifting to snorkel across the seagrass beds off Point Reilly and see Blue Swimmer Crabs by the dozen. Blue crabs and blue sea are a recipe to beat the blues.

Pygmy Blue Tongue Lizard

Australia’s Blue Tongue Lizards

Have tongues of brilliant blue

But the smallest of this Genus

Has a tongue of different hue

Rediscovered at Tiliqua

After decades thought extinct

In a trapdoor spider’s burrow

A pink tongued blue tongue skink

They live in spider burrows

In grassland never ploughed

And you can see them if you’re patient

And your voice is not too loud

A pink tongued Blue Tongue Lizard! I would like to see that. We had a great day out on the annual "lizard crawl" hosted by the Nature Foundation SA on Tiliqua Station near Burra. Here we got to see first hand these delightful but endangered small lizards that were thought to be extinct for decades before being rediscovered in 1992. Tiliqua adelaidensis is a fascinating small lizard that sets up home in an abandoned spiders hole in which it spends the rest of it's life. It only ventures out for small feeding forays on unwary insects before returning  home. They're definitely homebodies but home selection is tricky. You wouldn't want to head into a Trapdoor Spider or Wolf-spiders lair while the occupant was still there. Thank goodness for spider eating predators creating many abandoned houses.

Pygmy Blue Tongues were once common in the native grasslands in South Australia's mid-north but unfortunately for them this is prime cropping land. You can only imagine what the plough did to the millions of Pygmy Blue Tongues living out their sedentary lives in their spider borrows. Or to the spiders needed to dig fresh burrows. But not all areas were ploughed and rocky outcrops and other untouched grassy areas provided a refuge for the lucky few and the species has persisted. Just! The fragmented habitat is not ideal but a recovery programme is underway and a good understanding of where they are gives hope to a sustainable recovery. 

The Pygmy Blue Tongue is very cool. If you look hard into the burrow you will see the sharp yellow eyes in the shielded head looking back at you. And if you are really lucky you may see one venture out of the burrow to gobble up an insect. Or you can go fishing for them. A wriggling mealy worm on the end of a fishing line dangled from a rod is simply irresistible to a hungry lizard. Or to a greedy one for that matter! The ones we saw on the lizard crawl were sleek and fat and maybe getting just a few too many mealy worms. 

Climate Change

It’s hot and getting hotter

And there’s little we can do

As our ecosystems totter

And we sit at home and stew

Do we rage against the greed

That has delivered us this mess 

Or should we consider what we need

And tone down our own excess

As one of 7 billion

Is there really any point

To curb our wicked ways

While the others trash the joint

The problem with this thinking

Is that no one takes a stand

But we can slow the global sinking

If we work hard hand in hand

Behave not as others do

But as you wish they would

It is not what you can do

But about what we all could 

What does it really mean to be stewards of the world? Spare a thought for the animals living with consequences of our actions and you may get an inkling. I recently had a discussion about this with a religious friend with a human-centric point of view.  He truly believed that the planet and its resources were created and gifted to us by God.  He felt that we must be grateful for our gifts and be responsible stewards but humans should and must come first. He was not overly worried about climate change. 

The problem with this thinking is how much can we take?  Obviously there comes a point where the natural systems that sustain us will collapse if we take too much. This is the point which we go beyond at our peril. It unfortunately looks like we have reached this point even if we are not quite at the point of no return. What does it take to shake people out of their complacency? Even the news that 93% of the Great Barrier Reef is bleached is of not real concern to most people, or the collapse of world fisheries, or the global loss of biodiversity. They simply don't get it. They don't understand that the collapse of the natural world heralds our own demise. We can still retreat from the precipice but there are few signs of it happening. It's time we took this seriously.