NEWS
Native orchids for sale olunteers from the Point Lookout Bushcare Group have potted several dozen native buttercup orchids [cymbidium madidum] and will sell them at the local markets and from the Bushcare nursery on Kennedy Drive. These hardy orchids thrive in the fork of a tree and require very little care for great reward, in terms of spring to summer flowering. They have long, pendulous sprays of lemon-brown flowers and, as they mature, form large clumps with decorative strap-like leaves. Longtime resident and Bushcare member Greg Litherland collected the orchids from a brush box tree and old log stacks around his sawmill. Native orchids can only be collected under licence from the government and Point Lookout Bushcare is licenced to collect and sell them. Each orchid comes with government documentation. Since the release of its full colour guide to native gardening on Straddie, Point Lookout Bushcare has seen a big increase in the interest and sale of native plants. The guide
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Illustration of ''Neuwiedia griffithii'' |Source: Curtis's botanical magazine vol. 121 ser. 3 nr. 51 tabl. 7245 Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911). Not a buttercup orchid, but very pretty all the same.
costs $2 or comes free with a purchase. The Bushcare nursery is open from 10am to noon each Thursday, for sales and advice. The group also holds working bees, on a number of degraded Point Lookout sites, on the last Saturday of each month. Volunteers meet at the nursery shortly before 8am. Bring a hat. Gloves and equipment are provided. — Liz Johnston
That seals the deal V
isitors got a holiday experience they couldn’t read about in the tourist guides when an Australian fur seal took up residence on the rock wall outside their waterfront Amity holiday house. The tourists told staff at the Amity real estate agency, Straddie Sales and Rentals (SSR): “The seal was quite happy to sun itself on the rock wall all day. Not frightened of humans – it was only three metres away from the jetty. Our vet thinks it was possibly moulting due to all the fur marks. It stayed all day Tuesday and swam away on dusk.” Ian Robinson of SSR said he was sceptical, despite receiving word of several independent sightings of fur seals off Amity, until the amazed guests, holidaying at the SSR-managed waterfront property Cooks Hideaway at
the end of Cooks Street, provided this photographic evidence. Ian said he had received reports of as many as five fur seals cruising the Amity rock wall, while local surfers reported sightings of fur seals off Straddie’s Main Beach, Point Lookout. The seals are normally found on the islands of the Bass Strait, Tasmania and southern Victoria, but are known to head as far north as the mid New South Wales Coast. It is very rare for them to enter Queensland waters. The Straddie seal spotting was not a first for Queensland however, in September last year a New Zealand fur seal was spotted in the Tallebudgera Creek on the Gold Coast. — Pekeri Ruska
An Australian fur sea on the rocks at Amity.
SPRING 2011
10 YEARS OF LIVING IN SIN — STRADDIE ISLAND NEWS 9