We'd accidentally drunk a pint of a lovely cold real ale in a micro brewery in the beautiful Otways town of Forrest, and were on the way home when we had to screech the car to a halt because the cops were right ahead of us doing a breath test, and we thought it would be a good idea to run off into the bush. Seriously, I'm sure hubby wasn't over the limit (it was only one beer, after all), but we didn't want to take the risk so thought we'd be sure and walk it off. I'm glad we acted so irrationally as we wouldn't have stumbled on this magical forest of xanthorrhoea.
Xanthorrhoea, or grass trees as they are known in Australia, are a common sight around here. They're really slow growing and live for hundreds of years - a plant with a metre long truck might already be decades old. They used to be known as 'black boys', because after fires, the truck is revealed blackened under the leaves, and would look like a black figure. Of course, this wasn't seen as politically correct, so we use 'grass tree' instead. However, I read recently that 'balga' was an Aboriginal word that meant black boy, so although the name was seen as racist, it perhaps was just merely descriptive.
Xanthorrhoea were a source of food, too, for the Aboriginal people, who ate the white parts of the leafs and the roots. They'd use the seeds to grind to a powder for damper. Apparently even the flower was soaked for its nectar to make alcohol! The leaves also make a resin that sets hard to attach blades to spears and waterproofing for canoes.
The magical thing about this forest, though, was that the long, cylindrical of the grass tree were Dr Suess curly. I'd never, in all my days, seen ones with curly flowers. However, apparently they can change direction or shape after they flower or after they've been knocked about. They were in a fairly exposed spot so maybe they'd been buffetted in ways the other grass tree forests I'd seen hadn't. It didn't matter, so much - they were architecturally splendid, something to marvel at in our happy slight tipsiness, and we felt blessed we'd stumbled upon them.
Albert Namitjira, the famous Aboriginal painter, also painted grass trees. His paintings of Australian landscapes are iconic, particularly his trees and mountains, and I have a few of his prints framed around the house. I didn't realise that he also did these until my folks stumbled across an old print in a vintage roadside stall in Tasmania. They took it home and got it reframed (all the prints we have were vintage finds, reframed - they are beautiful).
