{"id":8558,"date":"2021-10-20T08:30:24","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T08:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emerson-school.mtuyiqpwmu-ewl6nqjko652.p.runcloud.link\/upschool\/?p=8558"},"modified":"2021-10-20T08:30:24","modified_gmt":"2021-10-20T08:30:24","slug":"wurundjeri-woiwurrung-and-garrong-the-black-wattle-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emersonsc.vic.edu.au\/upschool\/guest-contributors\/wurundjeri-woiwurrung-and-garrong-the-black-wattle-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Wurundjeri Woiwurrung and Garrong \u2013 The Black Wattle Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wurundjeri Woiwurrung and Garrong \u2013 The Black Wattle Tree<\/h2>\n

Acacia mearnsii – The Black Wattle Tree<\/p>\n

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Yellow screams optimism<\/h2>\n

Spring is coming, it seems, as the warm sun finally shows up to burn up the blanket of grey that smothered Melbourne for what seemed an endless winter.\u00a0The sun, so missed, finally burned brightly over us and the Yarra river shimmered under the midday light.<\/p>\n

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Wattle Universe<\/h2>\n

This year, like last year, has been challenging for Humans. And the sun for me arrives as a welcomed friend I have missed for too long. It is late August and a full sunny day in Melbourne; the bright light and warm air have elevated the mood of everyone. I can feel it. There is optimism in the air that good things are to come.<\/em><\/p>\n

I crossed over the bridge to my place, and hedging the narrow walkway of the bridge and paths was the unmissable Carnival of fluffy yellow blossoms that exploded from nowhere. Everwhere were voluminous clouds of thickly packed gold wattle. A whole universe of yellow had consumed the bush overnight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Whoa, I thought! Wattle season exploded out of nowhere, and what I remembered to be the cool coloured leaves of gums and wintered trees was now painted over in supercharged bright yellow.<\/em><\/p>\n

The bush, heaving a multiplicity of yellow blooms was intense, and a tiny part of me wished it wasn\u2019t all so yellow.\u00a0<\/em>Still, it was gorgeous and different, and it made me consider whether this was our version of the Cherry Blossom festival in Kyoto, Japan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps our wattle explosion is just as extraordinary?<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Black Wattle, Why?<\/h2>\n

The Wattle trees are a dominant species of tree and shrub in Australia. Also known as Acacia trees, there are about 1600 species in the land Downunder and 160 native to Victoria, 16 of which appear nowhere else in the world.
\nRecognisable by their fluffy bright yellow pom-pom like blossoms, the acacia trees have an irregular shape to them, the leaves can be ferny and refined, with soft green-grey colour ( in the case of the Black Wattle, The Silver Wattle and The Golden Wattle), and the blossoms can be intensely golden or pale yellow like the Black Wattle Tree.
\nOther species of Wattle bush have prickly pointing leaves with woody stems, leaves similar to eucalyptus and sometimes very prickly and thorny.<\/p>\n