Aboriginal Heritage (Eumeralla wars)
It is well known that Aboriginal tribes occupied these Volcanic Plains and the rest of Victoria before the arrival of the British settlers in the 1830s, and that they were systematically pushed off their tribal lands. There was resistance in many places, for example by the Gundijtmara tribes near Mount Eccles, for 20 years in a period now called the Eumeralla wars. It is less well known how these Aboriginal groups engaged with and managed the environment to provide them with food and a wide range of tools and products. It is clear that the park-like state of the plains, commented on by early explorers, was partly created by Aboriginal burning and other land management practices over thousands of years. Observations by Major Thomas Mitchell describe lines of women walking across the landscape digging for roots, which we now know to be the Myrnong or yam daisy, a staple food much like our potato. Studies have shown that Aboriginal groups or tribes used hundreds of different plants for food, medicine or tools. Tubers from many plants such as orchids, lilies and daisies were eaten and probably cultivated or managed in an ongoing sustainable garden. More recent studies have indicated an amazing story of an 8000 year old aquaculture system to farm eels, some say the oldest aquaculture system in the world, covering approximately 100 square kilometres around the Lake Condah region in the Western District, which points to a settled population rather than one that ranged across a defined territory.
Orchids
Hidden among the grasses of the Volcanic Plains, and surviving in unlikely places along roadsides and in cemeteries, are nearly 100 species of indigenous orchids. This remarkable family of plants, with its specialised reproduction techniques, was well represented in grasslands across a range of habitats. Many of these orchid species have been pushed to the edge of extinction and a few have only survived with the intervention of very dedicated people who have given years of their lives to find, research, nurture and re-introduce them to their shrinking habitats. Orchids cannot grow in isolation - each has evolved in relationship with the complex diversity of its particular habitat. Most, if not all, orchids can only feed and reproduce in a symbiotic relationship with invisible underground fungi. These were once distributed by bandicoots and bettongs. No bandicoots, no orchids. Now the orchids depend on humans to fulfil this need. Bandicoots snuffle around eating truffles and other fungi, spreading them around so they reach a variety of orchids and other plants which depend on fungi to process nutrients for their special needs. The long underground filaments of the fungi access nutrients in the soil, which they exchange for carbohydrates produced by orchids and other plants – a symbiotic relationship. The Sunshine Diuris orchid was once so common in fields around Melbourne it was called ‘snow in the paddock’. Now is virtually extinct in the wild, surviving naturally at a single remaining location.
Flowerlands
Although we usually refer to the ‘grasslands’ of the Victorian Volcanic Plains, some people prefer to call them flowerlands or herblands, because in Springtime, in their original condition, they would have been carpeted with wildflowers of many colours stretching for miles across the plains. In September 1836 explorer Major Thomas Mitchell commented on ‘these flowery plains’ in his diary. Batman in Melbourne in late 1835 refers to a “grass carpet, decked with flowers of lovely hues, most liberally spread over the land”. In these wildflower grasslands are seen most of the species or families of plants that we see in more familiar gardens. There are orchids, lilies and daisies but also plants related to ranunculus, carnations, primroses, snapdragons, geraniums, daphne, magnolias, lobelias, even peas, potatoes, mint and tobacco. These flowers are many, varied and beautiful, but not so visible or appreciated because most of them are quite small and now scattered. In most situations they are a garden in miniature, which takes time, attention and patience to fully appreciate. The flowers are also hard to find because so much of their habitat has been destroyed and they have been relegated to roadside patches and other pockets of refuge. This beautiful garden in miniature has been trampled and chewed, its pollinators exterminated and exiled and it has been replaced by a host of invaders including improved pasture for grazing stock, of white clover and ryegrass, with uninvited weeds such as boxthorn, artichoke thistle, carpet weed and a host of other broadleaf European weeds.
In the poo
Dung beetles serve a critical role in the ecology of the grasslands in the Volcanic Plains and most other places as well. Dung beetles feed on dung and breed in dung. There are about 350 species in Australia. The Dung Beetles dig holes and tunnels to feed, lay their eggs and raise their larvae. These holes can go down as far as a metre. They bring out sub-soil and take the dung down into the ground. This prevented the plains being covered with marsupial dung. This activity also mixes the dung with the soil, returns nutrients such as phosphorus, carbon and other organic matter to the soil, provides more nutrients for plant roots, aerates the soil, provides passages for water and generally makes the soil looser and more crumbly. The introduction of cattle to the plains and other parts of Australia brought a challenge to the native species of Dung Beetles that were used to the drier, smaller pads of marsupial poo. In 1969 the CSIRO brought in new species of Dung Beetles from Europe and Africa to deal with the accumulating cattle dung throughout the country, which was seen as being a breeding ground for flies, mites and other parasites.
