The outside of wet trees

The rain event described by my friend Denis Wilson has not visited Carwoola in any force.  Over the past three days we have recorded  26.5mm - just enough to lay the dust and freshen things up.

I went out to photograph the rain on the vegetation last evening.  The catalyst for this was seeing a stream of bubbles running down the trunk of a Yellow Box (Eucalyptus meliodora) in the bed outside our sunroom.
 The bubbles don't quite get to the level of flow at Carrington Falls shown by Denis, but do pile up into foam at the base of the trunk.
A little further from the house there are attractive colours in the bark of Brittle Gums (E. mannifera).  In many cases the trees are putting on a growth spurt following earlier wet days and shedding their outer bark.

Where the bark hasn't been shed a pleasant red colour is shown.
The original title of this was was to be "Raindrops keep falling on my leaves" but unfortunately all the images I got on the Sunday evening looked rather like Monet under the influence of Timothy Leary.  However things went a good deal better on Monday morning.

The first two are of a small maple tree beside our drive: leaves and stem.

The next is a weeping Melaleuca (sorry, don't know the species - it is a planted garden tree not a bush specimen).  Click to enlarge the image and look at the refracted images in the drops!
 Two flavours of Acacia follow.  First is A. dealbata (Silver Wattle - a bush tree very common in the area)  ...
 .. and then A pravissima (Ovens Wattle, planted beside the drive and a delight to the local Bronzewings when seeds fall..
 Even the Pinus radiata look pretty at times!

Comments

Ian Fraser said…
I love those foaming trunks. They're caused by a terpene - a group of chemicals widespread in plants, which act as insecticides. One of these is also a saponin (ie 'soapy') and after a dry spell it builds up on the plant surface, where the rain lathers it beautifully.
Flabmeister said…
Many thanks Ian. Judging by the range of arthropods I find under the bark of Yellow Box, they have good need of insecticides.

Martin

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