Some of the trees I’ve come across in the last month should reset our collective consciousness as to what the ancestors were capable of. The big Gali gurranaa camp at Cumborah should also put to bed the last of the academic theories on bird shit causing Trees in Trees. Botanist and expert in arid zone ecology at UNE, Dr Boyd Wright, earlier suggested this was the reason there are TinTs clusters around Aboriginal camps “Their profusion around habitation points of the west NSW people could relate to more birds coming into those areas to feed on grass seed that was left behind after people processed grain”. There is little grass around the ridges except for a patch of spinifex that was used for its resin & fibre not its seed. Good for thatching & bedding down on hard red ridges but not for food. Gravel pits & abandoned opal mines surround Cumborah not grassy flats so the birds would have poor pickings. There are however over 40 TinTs & plenty more yet to be found I expect.
Last week I finally found a prototype ringtree that proves beyond reasonable doubt these culturally merged trees are man-made not naturally occurring. Some trees inosculate relatively easily – redgums, coolabahs leopardwoods whitewoods & rosewoods. Others like the bimblebox & belah will also join up over time but ‘rings’ are not common & I think it takes generations to achieve the desired shapes. As Ive said before, ringtrees here are found around good water sources but in other places they may have different cultural meanings. Priscilla Reid Loynes thinks belah ringtrees grouped together signify a ‘woman’s area’ and below is what I know as Priscilla’s tree.
Other ringtrees in this patch include these old ones and they are all found at the same place along the Big Warrambool. The warrambool is the boundary between the Gamilaroi and Euahlayi (Yuwaalaraay/Ularoi) and there is a sandhill camp about 400 mtrs away with a very old TinT & box ringtree side by side.
So while Priscilla & I were mesmerised by the extraordinary belah branch ring we didn’t notice the small misshapen ‘ring in the making’ beside it. Happens all the time when your eyes alight on a spectacular CMT you walk past a less showy but more significant one. So here is the smallish belah ringtree with 2 visible separate tie marks below
Priscilla is consulting with her mob atm to see if we can sample the belah TinT & Boyd is consulting with his mob at UNE to see if anyone is interested in testing a slice of the ‘tie’ sites for us. It would be really interesting to see if the 2 trunks were tied with animal sinew or plant fibre and how old that material was. The carbon dating place in the US – DirectAMS has closed – but Paleoscapes Archaeobotanical Services Team (PAST – Kathryn Puseman) are still around.
The next astonishing tree merger comes from the Ginghet on Wailwun country where there are 2 coolibahs joined together. Separate coolibahs connected long ago & remaining attached despite the fact the smaller one has been rung. The last pic is also a coolibah connected tree(s) nearby & also manipulated but rerooted not joined (inosculated) I think
This is why Im not surprised the people were joining trees together – Ive seen it in redgums. Mike Bremers photographed this one along the Barwon Darling a few years ago now. He thought the redgum on the right might have fallen on the other but that doesn’t explain the cross branch that completes the ‘A’.
The reason I think the redgum & coolabah have joined together so well is that are genetically the same plant. I think in the past they were epicormic shoots or re-roots off the same tree. Like the mallee lignotuber, they may look separate but are connected underground. That’s also why estimating the age of eucalypts is so difficult – the age below ground or above? As Vicky Shukuroglou who came to see the trees here earlier in the week wrote “claims of the oldest biggest longest are just distractions from what actually matters. I tell people what I think about such claims and let them speak their voice and I speak mine” This is her book co-authored with Bruce Pascoe where you can hear her voice – Im enjoying it atm, XXXX
