Introducing our big trees – the Black Boxes
Do you notice the big trees around your place? Do you know what they are?
Let’s have a look at some of ours – the trees in the rainbow photo of the first page in “Biodiversity on our farm”. The photo below is a close-up of one of those trees in a different part of our place. Isn’t it a grand old tree!
Mature Black Box tree – note fenceline for guide to size.
Can you see lots of white dots on the tree? Do you know what they are?
The tree is in blossom. There are tiny white flowers all over it. We could hardly miss this ! Between Christmas 2011 and mid-January 2012, along the Wimmera’s roadsides and in the paddocks, Black Box trees were so heavy with blossom that they looked a lighter colour! We hadn’t seen such a display before! What did it? Flooding a year earlier, in January 2011!
Do you know what sort of living thing this is?
Ok it’s a tree, so it is part of the plant or flora kingdom. Living things have two names. The common one is easy to say. This is a Black Box. The scientific one refers to its classification as a species. This is a Eucalyptus largiflorens. Both names tell us something about what sort of living thing it is.
It also has a Wergaia name from the local Wotjabolak people’s – Ngarri.
The page is about what the names tell about this tree.
This page is about the noticeable features of this tree that identify it.
What are Black Boxes linked to?
This section looks at land, water and living things found with our Black Boxes.
What’s the lifecycle of a Black Box?
How can we look after them?
