Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

The shadows of Ez and I pose for a self-portrait in front of the alpine and subalpine vegetation on Mount Wellington. May 2010.

Mount Wellington is a lovely place. At the top, anyone there is subject to ice-laden storm winds, high rainfall and low winter temperatures, even if snow seldom lies for more than a few days.

Thus, it isn't surprising that such an environment supports many species not found much in the world. Many of the species that you'll find up there belong to the Antarctic Gondwanan association. I’m not sure if there is a fee for membership, but that association is one in which our plants share a common ancestry with plants from New Zealand and South America from their time together in the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana.

As you can see from the picture, the topography does provide some shelter, drainage is good and soil can accumulate, alpine vegetation is dominated by heath and shrubberies in which woody plants prevail. Many of these, such as scoparia, provide some rather fabulous displays of colour.

Comments

Roddy said…

I like your geological lessons. You broach topics I would never address myself.

1 June 2010 at 18:51

Roddy said…

I guess that I have better things to amuse me.
No; really it makes for a good rapport with you.

4 June 2010 at 17:27

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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