The first time I saw an Australian tree, I thought it mighty odd. Spindly, scraggly and misshapen sprang to mind.
The trees were unfamiliar. Some were exotic and tropical, others seemed better suited to a desert or arid plain.
The trees in my neighbourhood didn’t look like the oaks of England or the birch, ash, elm and maple; the yew, whitebeam and hazel. Picture a drawing of a typical tree: mushroom-like, bright green, thick with leaves, and supported by a solid brown trunk. These were the trees I remember from home, vastly different to the gnarly eucalypts of this new environment.
The ghost gum in the backyard was a prime example.
It sprawled above our lawn, its patchy foliage offering no shade from the sun. The late afternoon light shone through the tree as if it were translucent. I knew trees with dark bark, but the trunk on this tree was milky white. I liked the way the ghost gum sighed as the wind moved through its leaves, but I’d spend hours raking up the leaves which constantly fell to the ground.
The bark on the gum’s trunk would peel once every year. Like a snake shedding its skin, the tree would give up its bark, leaving behind a shiny, smooth surface. During a storm, the ghost would regularly lose a limb. In the morning, I’d find one of its long, twisted arms lying on the grass, an end buried in the ground.
During a conversation with my father-in-law about why the tree was so brittle, he told me it was called the widow maker because its heavy branches often fell on to innocent victims beneath. I shuddered at the thought of my wife standing under the ghost on a windy day. This was not a proper tree.
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| Photo credit: Mark Wassell (Flickr Creative Commons) |
Some months later, I watched a documentary on the Australian outback.
One image stayed in my mind. A picture of a lone ghost gum in the middle of the outback landscape. The ghost stood in contrast with the blue skies and red rock like a pale white sentinel guarding the land.
It looked majestic, this denizen of the outback, stark in its pristine whiteness. It was graceful yet hardy, obviously enduring a range of difficult climates. Australia’s landscape is harsh and unforgiving, weather-worn and storm-beaten, yet this tree looked as connected to the land as the kangaroo or wallaby.
Australia isn’t rich in the sort of cultural heritage and history you might find in the grand cities of Europe. It’s too young and has been too far removed from mankind over the centuries. Instead of ancient towns and cities built by human hand, Australia has old objects of a different kind. The rugged landscape is its castles and stone keeps, the eucalypts are its royal kings and queens.
It dawned on me that I had my own beautiful piece of the Australian landscape growing in our backyard. The ghost gum. The tree that I believed served no purpose.
A few weeks ago, a storm hit hard and the tree came down. In the blink of an eye, the ghost was no more.
The brightly coloured lorikeets no longer sit in its lower branches, the sulphur-crested cockatoos are gone from its top. I no longer have to clean up the gum’s scattered debris, but I miss doing so. I miss its messy touch.
Most of all, I miss the connection it gave me to this wild and untamed country. I regret the passing of my own piece of Australiana. I feel guilty at having thought so little of such an important tree.
What exists in your local neighbourhood that is unique to that ‘place’? What cultural thing is entirely connected or related to where you live? A building, a temple, a road, a mountain, an idea, a word, an image?
This post was written as part of the 38Write | Structure writing workshop led by Kristin Bair O’Keeffe looking at the obvious and obscure relationship of the structure of stuff to place. For more details, have a look here.
Not far from our flat are the remains of a 2nd century wall. Thought to be part of a Gallo-Roman temple, they have been incorporated into several chateaux over the years, and now sit near-forgotten in a parking lot behind an apartment building. Protected only by a chain-link fence and designated only by a weathered sign, the Mur de Sarrasins encapsulates the cavalier attitude towards ancient history by those who have such a history – as an American it isn’t possible to visit 20 centuries old man-made constructions. Thanks for your beautiful post on the ghost tree, I believe I know exactly how you feel.
Really liked this piece Russell, a truly evocative piece of writing delivering information with a beautiful, descriptive clarity.
Lovely piece Russell, really like the arc from backyard to outback and back around. Barring the Sydney Opera and the suspension bridge nearby, what it is known for is its geographic beauty. The photo and your words helped paint your ghost gum as a welcoming regal presence. And remember, it did give sufficient warning when it went… Glad you and your wife were in tune enough to listen and heed. As for the Netherlands, it sounds trite but it’s the old-fashioned windmills and canals carving their way through the countryside and into cities and towns. They really do ground you; see them and you know you’re ‘home’.
Thanks for the great feedback, Aisha. Glad you liked it.
Thanks Liene. That’s both very cool that you have such ancient history in close proximity to your flat but also a little bit sad that it’s been neglected and forgotten about. What I wouldn’t give for a 2nd century wall near my house!
On my last visit to England, I wandered around marvelling at the history on every corner and watching to see if other people also took notice of these things. Sadly, life seems to get in the way and there doesn’t appear to be time to stop and admire such things – unless you’re on holiday like I was! 🙂
Love that you love my arc!
What I wasn’t able to explain in my piece above is that I’m obviously more relieved that the tree didn’t take out my poor wife – but the word count didn’t allow me to go into that part of the story. Wouldn’t want you thinking that I preferred the tree, beautiful as it was 🙂
You know, I’ve never seen the windmills and canals of the Netherlands in the flesh and I’d really like to one day. I think they’d be beautiful, particularly the way the windmills stand out on the flat landscape like the mechanical, moving objects they are. Thanks for sharing that ‘connection’ to your current home.
We have a blue gum near our house; just outside the yard, in the paddock that surrounds us. I love to look at it, and it is a perfect distance from the house. I don’t like living too close to them for all of the reasons that you spoke of, as well as the fire hazard of having a giant eucalypt close by – but I love to look at them. Their smooth trunks, their massive majesty. Have you seen the rainbow eucalypts from Hawaii? They are amazing.
I am originally from Adelaide and have lived in the SA for forty years. I return to Adelaide every year, and never tire of driving through the hils to
When we were visiting Australia a few years back, I became obsessed with trees. I got a crick in my neck from standing at the foot of a huge tree, taking a photo up through its limbs. Must dig those photos out again!
Hi Sara, I haven’t seen the rainbow eucalypts, but will see if the wonders of Google can show me some images. I love the sound of your blue gum. They make for the most stunning pictures, especially when the sun is going down. Feel free to share a photo here if you have one. If not, I’ll just let my imagination wander 🙂
Hi – and thanks for sharing those wonderful images. I’ve never driven through the US prairies but have been through the Canadian equivalent and I can picture how beautiful it sounds. In the times of the European settlers, it must have felt otherworldly to be out there on those vast plains under immense skies. Thanks again 🙂
Make sure you do and share some here if you can!
Have you ever seen the gigantic fig trees arranged around Hyde Park and in the Botanical Gardens here in Sydney. They are quite fantastic in their size – but no wonder having stood here for tens and hundreds of years soaking up the sun’s nutrients.
My family immigrated to Australia when I was 7 years old and the dry, dusty gum-trees of Australia looked so dull to me compared to the adundant tropical vegetation of Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. It took a long time before I could even see a shade of green in their olive-coloured leaves. But when you view them standing in the red sands of the Northern Territory, they definitely do have a stark beauty to them. But the tropical trees of my childhood will always win out, I’m sorry to say…
Hi Nicola, thanks for stopping by. I’ve never been to SA but have heard the vegetation can be lush and tropical. Sounds divine. The trees here certainly do have a stark beauty but, like you, I also miss the leafy greens of my homeland. You win some, you lose some, I guess.
I holidayed in tropical North Queensland a while back and got into a conversation with a local about the trees in the UK. She’d only visited once (in the winter…) and thought that all our trees were dead because none of them had any leaves. I thought that was really funny at the time…but thinking about it, if you didn’t really know about deciduous trees because you’d lived in a tropical environment all your life, how barren and bleak must a wintery England have looked. No wonder she was in no hurry to ever visit the UK again!
Hi Rhiannon, thanks for the interesting comment. It’s true – if you’d not seen UK trees in winter before, it might look a bit barren. The reverse is that it’s winter here in Oz and I don’t think any of our local trees have lost their leaves. I have a view of the district from outside my house and all I can see is dark green forest/bush. Kind of nice to still see green throughout the winter.
Oh my – I missed this post somewhere along the way. This is the first thing about Australia I’ve read in a long time that has really moved me.
I grew up with these beauties. I remember peeling back the bark as a child, watching the ants underneath scurry to find a new home. Sometimes it was an opportunity for a ‘boat race’ near a local creek, the first job being to entice the local fauna aboard before launching my paperbark boat(s), then running along the bank to follow their progress.
A few years ago I took a then boyfriend of mine to Melbourne for a visit. At that stage, I’d been living in London for 3 and a half years and this was my second visit back. My sister lives in Skye down on the Mornington Peninsula and we were driving along the back roads to her place. I remember being so struck by the landscape – misty, stark and so uniquely Australian. It wasn’t hot (we were there in May) but as the morning mist burnt off, the sky was that sharp, clear blue I have yet to see anywhere else – and so different from England’s soft, dusky landscapes.
Your post brought all of that back in a flash – thank you.
ps…those sulpher-crested cockatoos are noisy buggars aren’t they? Bet it’s rather quiet now…
I’m wih Linda here. I caught the train from Brussels to Amsterdam on my last visit and that flat flat landscape with the windmills silhouetted against the horizon heralded my arrival in the land of my dad’s birth better than anything else could.
Sounds lovely. One day I’ll see it for myself…
Thanks Kym. That means a lot to me coming from you. Pleased it brought back some lovely memories. Oh yes, those cockatoos are very noisy – when they swoop past overhead, they’ll scare the life out of me. Thankfully we have another tree in the garden (not as nice as the gum) that they’ve now made their home so we still get to see them occasionally, as we do the lorikeets.
After living here for six years, I can honestly say I’ve never seen skies like it – clear, bright blue and vast. I never take it for granted and it’s a joy to look out the window in the morning and see all of that blueness.