Aussie Flora

As with the diversity on the reef, we saw a HUGE variety of plants while in Australia.  Even in the city, I was amazed to find HUGE fig trees just right in the middle of roads!  Amazing!  Of course, the most interesting plants we saw while in the tropics.  Everything was so lush and green!  And some things were quite strange-- from "chocolate pudding" fruits, to vines that could rip out your eyeballs, to berries that cause temporary blindness, to HUGE ferns growing out of trees many feet up in the air--the flora was simply amazing!

This Kauri Pine Tree is hundreds of years old and HUGE-

apparently some are around 3,000 years old!  Good grief!

A fig tree in the middle of the road!

A strangler fig in the rainforest

Basket fern up in a tree!

Gorgeous palms at the appropriately named, Palm Cove Beach, where we stayed.

VERY tall sugar cane--we saw MANY fields of it while in the tropics.

Wait-a-while Vine (also known as Lawyer Vine).  YIKES!  So named because if it gets caught on you, you are going to have to wait awhile getting it off!  The vines use the hooks to latch on to trees surrounding it and then sort of pull itself up the canopy.  

And here is what the stem looks like--OUCH!

FLOWERS! :)

Tropical Fruits!  Black sapote, mamey sapote, red paw-paw, custard apple, and fresh coconut!  We also sampled passion fruit, though not pictured.  I like the passionfruit (and coconut) the best.  The others weren't particularly gross, but not particularly good either--not something I would choose to eat for my morning fruit, but definitely fun to try none-the-less.  

Chocolate pudding fruit (black sapote)--very strange indeed!