Home-base Anti-ageing Treatment for Women

Home-base Anti-ageing Treatment for Women

Brisbane, October 30, 2013 — To aid in the fight against wrinkles and skin ageing, Stop and Pose, Europe’s phenomenal painless and home-base anti-ageing solution has finally arrived in Australian shore!

In an era where physical appearance is of great value, looking youthful and ageless is a woman’s secret weapon to be more confident. That being said, it’s no surprise that lots of women are searching for ways to attain youthful and more radiant skin.

“Good skin is a key component of overall beauty and good health, and it can also affect your emotional and mental well-being.,” says Kori Ellis of sheknows.com, a beauty and wellness website for women. “From acne as a teenager to fine lines in middle age, skin problems can affect your confidence and self-esteem. When you have healthy skin, you are able to face daily activities and life's challenges with more confidence.,” she says.

Today, millions of women are looking for the right treatment to help stop or slow down skin ageing. Fortunately, beauty experts have found modern ways to address the issue of wrinkles, skin ageing and discoloration with the help of anti-ageing products.

Now, various anti-ageing products in the market are created to satisfy the growing demands of consumers who want to stop the clock of ageing as well as bring back their youthful beauty. Among the most notable brands of anti-ageing products that are tagged as safe, painless and non-invasive solutions for wrinkle reduction, skin tightening and smoothening devices is the TriPollar Stop.

About TriPollar Stop
TriPollar Stop is a revolutionary new anti-wrinkle, skin tightening device that brings about a fresh, younger look that until now could only be achieved through professional clinical treatments. Fresh from amazing success in Europe, this proven technology has now been launched in a handheld device that can be used in the comfort and security of home. Affordable and clinically proven, this professional grade anti-ageing beauty product contains TriPollarTM—an innovative Radio Frequency (RF) technology that delivers immediate long-lasting anti-aging results from the first treatment without surgery.

Stop & Pose Contact Details
Toll Fee Number: 1-800-228-393
Official Website: www.stopandpose.com.au

Leimo now available in Australia

Leimo now available in Australia

November 21, 2013
Brisbane, AU — The latest and advanced hair regrowth product is now available for Aussies. Leimo is a hair regrowth treatment that is specifically made to battle hair loss. Thinning and shedding hair would no longer be a dilemma, as Leimo comes to Australian shores.

What is Leimo?
Leimo is a new and innovative way of combating hair loss. It makes use of the Leimo Personal Hair Laser, which helps regrow hair through a technology at par with major laser hair clinics around the globe. It is a painless, easy and cost-efficient way to regrow hair for men or women experiencing hair loss.
What is great about Leimo is that it is especially created for home use. It can be used to treat hair loss in the comforts of your home. Convenient and practical, and most of all, effective, it takes away the hassle of going to hair clinics and paying heavy clinic costs.

How does it work?
The Leimo Personal Hair Laser Starter Kit comes with a Leimo Personal Hair Laser and a variation of wet products that aids in hair regrowth. The hair laser utilizes low level laser therapy (LLLT) and light emitting diode therapy (LEDT). The low level laser therapy creates a process called Photo-biostimulation which increases the available energy of the hair follicle cells, resulting in hair regrowth and healthier hair follicles.

The laser used in the Leimo Personal Hair Laser is a cold beam laser. Cold beam lasers are used for therapeutic purposes and it is made to stimulate cells rather than destroying them.

The wet products that come with the starter kit are made for everyday use. Each has its own way of helping the hair regrowth process. With religious usage of the hair laser and the wet products, hair regrowth is surely within reach.

Leimo is a product of InnovaDerma™ International, a revolutionary and innovative company that produces state-of-the-art products in beauty, wellness and skincare. Home based in Hong Kong, InnovaDerma™ International has many directly owned subsidiaries in many regions like in Europe and Asia.

To know more about Leimo and the rest of InnovaDerma™’s roster of products, visit www.innovaderma.com or www.leimo.com.au. Leimo’s customer care service is also available every day by phone at 1800-280-250 from 7 am to 11 pm.

Oldest Living Tree

HUON PINE

How long does it live?

The Huon pine is Australia’s oldest living tree and is one of the oldest living organisms on earth. Individuals have been known to reach an age of 3,000 years. Fossil records from a tree found in the south-west of Tasmania were dated at 3,462 years. (Carder A., 1995). Only the bristle-cone pine of North America exceeds it in age.

Growth rate and reproduction

The Huon pine grows at the incredibly slow rate of  between 0.3 – 2 mm per year in diameter. Despite such slow growth the tree may attain heights of 40 m and  commonly reaches 20 m to 25 m in height. The foliage of  the Huon pine consists of tiny scales closely pressed to  the stalk.

Huon pines produce pollen and seeds from small cones  that are about 3 mm long. Male and female cones are  produced on separate trees. A small number of trees  produce both male and female cones, though this is quite rare.

Reproduction occurs in ‘mast years’. Every 5 – 7 years  a mass seeding occurs. Seeds are dispersed a short distance around the tree except where they land in  water and are transported downstream. Huon pines  also reproduce vegetatively. They do this by layering. Tree  branches reaching the ground start to root and establish themselves as a new tree, which eventually breaks away from the parent. Branches breaking off trees can also take root.

In this way populations such as a forest stand at Mt Read, which have no female trees, continue to survive. It is believed that the Mt Read stand has been regenerating in the absence of female trees for more than 10,000 years, although no individual trees are more than 1,500 years old.

Where does it grow?

Huon pines are found in the west and southwest of Tasmania where they grow among river-bank rainforest and also in a few subalpine lake shore forests. They are usually killed by fire and are drought sensitive, so are restricted to cool, wet areas.

Huon pines are often associated with rainforest species such as myrtle (Nothofagus cunninghamii), leatherwood (Eucryphia lucida) and sassafras (Atherosperma moschatum).

Some of the most accessible sites to see Huon pines are: the Tahune Forest Reserve near Geeveston on the Picton River; the Arthur-Pieman River State Reserve near Corinna; the Teepookana Forest Reserve; the heritage landing on the Gordon River on the west coast; and near Newall Creek on the Mount Jukes Road south of Queenstown.

Australian Volcanoes

Australia's only active volcano is rumbling fiercely, with new NASA photos revealing its lava lake has overflowed its crater. The volcano in question, Big Ben, is happily located on Mawson Peak in the remote southern reaches of the Indian Ocean on Heard Island, an Australian territory. People only bother to visit Heard and its neighbour McDonald Island every couple of years, because there's little there but chilly wastelands and the territory is a nature reserve people aren't allowed to visit without a permit. Even fisherfolk chasing the apparently tasty patagonian toothfish, aka Chilean Sea Bass, don't often bother landing. 

No permanent human presence exists on the islands, beyond an automated weather station. NASA keeps an eye on the islands, though, because of the volcano atop Heard Island's Big Ben occasionally fires up. Last October we reported things have started to look interesting on the island. 

Heard Island's remoteness and Mawson Peak's altitude - 9006 feet or 2745 metres - mean there's nothing to fear from the eruption. Even local populations of seals and birds probably aren't in peril, as few live near the Peak's summit. But Heard Island does experience "strong and persistent westerly winds ", according to its official website.

Volcanic fields in Australia

It is thought that eastern Australia has been passing over a hotspot as it drifted north, leading to a chain of volcanic activity from north to south. Basaltic lava flows are prominent along the Eastern Uplands, as well as some of the offshore islands. Lord Howe is one such island that has been interpreted as a shield volcano that has been eroded down to a remnant of its former mass. The lava layers in this remnant indicate that the deposition took place in at least 2 major phases of volcanic activity in the Late Miocene, about 6-7 Ma. Together with several seamounts, it has been suggested to be part of a chain of seamounts trending north-south for about 1000 km that were formed as the continental crust moved north across a hotspot at the rate of about 6 cm/year. Based on this suggestion it is expected that if a new volcano formed at the present it would be about 400 km along the chain to the south of Lord Howe Island (Twidale & Campbell, 2005). The northernmost seamount in this chain is Nova Bank, that has been dated to about 23 Ma.

The volcanic provinces of Australia would be expected to display a similar consistent age distribution pattern to that of the seamounts, assuming the validity of the interpretation mentioned above, with the oldest in the north and the youngest in the south. The pattern has been found to be more complex than a simple continuum from north to south.

• 47-16 Ma Tasmania - south
• 38-13 Ma Tasmania - north
• 33-28 Ma Queensland central coast
• 26-20 Ma Victoria - eastern
• 25-22 Ma Queensland - southeast
• 7-2 Ma Victoria - west & South Australia - southeast

According to Twidale & Campbell, the pattern of age distribution of volcanic activity in Australia does not indicate activity associated only with the passage over hotspots, of which there are thought to be as many as 5, 3 on land and 2 offshore, though they could be regarded as centres of volcanic activity rather than hotspots. These possible hotspot tracks tend to trend NNE-SSW. The authors suggest tectonic regimes, imposed compressive (quiescent) and extensional (eruptive), can explain the discontinuous nature of the eruptive activity.

There is also volcanic activity associated with the separation of Australia from Antarctica at the breakup of Gondwana, that is not connected to any activity associated with possible hot spots. Volcanic activity associated with separation of Mesozoic and Early Cainozoic age are present in some of the older eruptions in eastern Victoria and northern Tasmania.

Volcanic activity in modern times is associated with the Indonesian arc in such places as Papua New Guinea and the adjacent islands, where it is linked to the subduction zone along the northern margin of the Australian Plate. Another problem with the eastern Australian provinces is that the lava chemistry varies, leading to more complications. There is disagreement about a number of proposals, such as whether hotspots or developing oceanic rifts are the cause of the volcanicity, or whether hot fluids and gases have invaded the lithosphere to form the magma chambers from which the eruptions subsequently took place. The lava flows have proven very useful for dating the landforms in their vicinity.

In Australia there are also older volcanic rocks that are widely distributed in ancient depositional sequences interbedded with sedimentary rocks. They form important components of both the Yilgarn and Pilbara blocks. Several ranges in north Queensland, such as the Newcastle Range near Einasleigh is underlain by acid volcanics of Late Palaeozoic age, well-developed columnar joints indicating the volcanic nature of the country rock. In the Featherbed Range near Chillagoe, further to the north, there are sequences of bedded silicic volcanics that have been weathered differentially and eroded, resulting in ridge and valley forms. There are ancient puys or small domes in the landscape composed of viscous rhyolite. The Gawler Ranges in arid central South Australia, has one of the most extensive exposures of silicic volcanic rocks, dacite and rhyolite, dating from the Middle Proterozoic. The well-developed orthogonal and sheet fractures of the landscape are more typical of granitic than volcanic terraines.

Drainage patterns of a region can be changed by volcanic eruptions, overprinting the pre-eruption landscape when lava domes replace the pre-existing landform, the drainage system being replaced by a drainage system that radiates from the peak of the lava dome. When lava domes are so large they cover a region they can be preserved as occurs on the western slopes of the Tweed Volcano, as well as on the Comboyne Plateau and the Ebor Volcano, both of which are in New South Wales.

Lava tongues can have an effect on the local scale when a tongue flows down a valley dividing an existing stream into 2 separate streams that each run between the tongue and the bedrock slopes. When the lava is of an erosion-resistant nature it can eventually lead to a reversed landscape in which the rock surrounding the lava is eroded down below the level of the lava, which then becomes a ridge. To the northeast of Cobar in New South Wales is just such a formation, El Capitan, a basalt-capped ridge from the Miocene the stands 40 m above the surrounding plains.

Forests in Western Australia

There are four dominant tree species throughout Australia's South West - jarrah, karri, tingle and tuart. All are unique to Western Australia and support a diverse range of fauna and other flora species in their associated forests.  A great way to explore the region’s forests is by following one of the many sign-posted scenic drives. Some sections of these drives are on gravel roads, so please drive carefully and pay attention to road and weather conditions.

Jarrah Forest

The diverse ecosystem of the jarrah forest is named after the dominant tree species 'jarrah' (Eucalyptus marginata). Jarrah trees grow up to 40 metres in height (130 feet) and can live up to 1,000 years. Its long, straight trunk of richly coloured and beautifully grained timber make it perfect for woodworking, and because it’s very durable, it’s also used as a structural material for building. For this reason, around half of the original jarrah forests that covered 3.9 million hectares from Perth to the South West have been destroyed by extensive logging and clearing for agriculture.

The jarrah forests that remain are home to a wide variety of flora and fauna species, including 150 birds, 29 mammals, 45 reptiles and over 1,200 plants and wildflowers. Excellent examples of jarrah forest can be found at the Collie River Valley and around the town of Nannup.

Karri Forest

The Southern Forests area of Australia's South West is well known for its majestic karri forests. Typically found between Manjimup and Denmark, the smooth-barked karri tree (Eucalyptus diversicolor) grows up to 90 metres in height, making it the tallest tree in Western Australia and one of the world's tallest hardwood trees.

Other tree species that shelter beneath the mighty karri include the peppermint tree, so-called for the peppermint-like smell of its leaves when crushed, and the delicate karri sheoak. Come spring, a stunning display of wildflowers colours the forest, with the blues of tree hovea and native wisteria contrasting with the cream flowers of old man's beard and star-shaped crowea. The Brockman, Beedelup, Gloucester and Warren National Parks are excellent examples of these beautiful forests.

Tingle Forest

The Walpole-Nornalup National Park is the only place where the red tingle tree (Eucalyptus Jacksonii) is found. This buttressed, rough barked tree can live over 400 years and grows up to 75 metres in height, and with a girth of up to 26 metres, they have the largest base of all the eucalypts. There is also a yellow tingle tree (Eucalyptus guilfoyle) which doesn't grow as wide as the red tingle tree.

While tingle trees are often hollowed out by fire and fungal attack, their robust structure allows them to continue growing. An excellent example of this is the Giant Tingle Tree near Walpole. The Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk gives visitors a different perspective of the tingle forest from 38 metres above the forest floor.

Tuart Forest

Tuart forest is one of the rarest ecosystems left on Earth and is only found along the Swan Coastal Plain, from Jurien Bay to Busselton in Western Australia. The dominant species within this forest is the tuart tree (Eucalyptus gomphocephala). Tuarts are characterised by grey bark and elongated, spiral-shaped leaves. They can grow up to 33 metres high, 10 metres in girth and live over 500 years. In the 1830s tuart timber was highly valued by millrights, shipwrights and wheelrights, as it is almost impossible to split or splinter the timber.

The tuart forest within Australia's South West is protected by the Tuart Forest National Park and is the largest area of pure tuart remaining in the world. The park is also home to a number of rare and endangered species including the Carnaby's black cockatoo, chuditch, brush-tailed phascogale, western ring-tailed possum and brush wallaby.

Some Australian Fungi

Agaricus silvaticus

Agaricus silvaticus otherwise known as the Scaly Wood Mushroom or Blushing Wood Mushroom, is a common, edible Mushroom, often found in groups in coniferous forests from early summer.

The greyish-brown cap is hemispherical when young, but later flattens out up to 10 cm in diameter. It is covered with broad scales. The gills are grey when young, and become much darker with age. The spores are chocolate brown. The stem is brownish, often with a hanging ring and a small bulb at the base. The flesh is white with a mild taste, turning reddish when cut.

Amanita muscaria, commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita, is a poisonous and psychoactive basidiomycete fungus, one of many in the genus Amanita.

Amanita muscaria

A large conspicuous mushroom, Amanita muscaria is generally common and numerous where it grows, and is often found in groups with basidiocarps in all stages of development. Fly agaric fruiting bodies emerge from the soil looking like white eggs. After emerging from the ground, the cap is covered with numerous small white to yellow pyramid-shaped warts. These are remnants of the universal veil, a membrane that encloses the entire mushroom when it is still very young. Dissecting the mushroom at this stage will reveal a characteristic yellowish layer of skin under the veil; this is helpful in identification. As the fungus grows, the red colour appears through the broken veil and the warts become less prominent; they do not change in size, but are reduced relative to the expanding skin area. The cap changes from globose to hemispherical, and finally to plate-like and flat in mature specimens. Fully grown, the bright red cap is usually around 8–20 cm (3–8 in) in diameter, although larger specimens have been found. The red colour may fade after rain and in older mushrooms.

Amanita punctata

Amanita punctata also known as Spotted Stem Ringless Amanita.

Amanita punctata  is up to 87 mm wide, at first globose, then convex, sometimes gibbous, then planar to slightly depressed, smooth, slightly sticky when moist, nonappendiculate, with a markedly striate to sulcate and rather short margin. The cap is very dark gray to grayish brown to smoke gray, and is darkest over the disc. The volva is present as occasional patches (especially in young material), with most of them near the margin.

Calocera guepiniodes

Calocera guepiniodes with common name Scotsman’s Beard.

This species looks like tiny, cylindrical or slightly tapering orange or yellow fingers on wood. The fingers are up to 5mm tall and have a gelatinous texture. It can be found on dead wood, often Banksia wood. It is a decomposer species of fungi.

Collybia sp

Collybia sp or the commonly known Twisted stem agaric

This mushroom is placed in this broad genus for the time being as identification can be difficult. The cap is convex to flat, reddish-brown, to 6 cm diameter. Gills almost free from stem, dirty white in colour. Stem twisted, rope-like to 7 cm long, often somewhat flattened. Caespitose habit, forming fairy rings in lawn.

Zoos in Australia

Australia has a wealth of public and private zoos. Many include exotic (to us) species such as big cats and elephants, while others focus on Australian animals and birds. Some emphasise their breeding programs for endangered animals.

Adelaide Zoo

Adelaide Zoo is home to 1,800 animals. Don’t miss Wang Wang and Funi, Australia’s only giant pandas and the only giant pandas in the southern hemisphere. For something special, go on a behind the scenes tour and learn more about the pandas.

Adelaide Zoo is a 15 minute walk from the centre of Adelaide, and adjacent to the famous Adelaide Botanic Garden. Free guided walks and daily keeper talks make this a special experience. Dine in the bistro or relax on the central lawns. There is a range of gifts and mementos in the gift shops.

Australia Zoo

Australia Zoo is located on the Queensland Sunshine Coast near the Glasshouse Mountains north of Brisbane. It is one of Australia’s most popular tourist attractions, and the Home of The Crocodile Hunter, the late Steve Irwin.

The Zoo has its origin back in 1970 when Steve Irwin’s parents, Bob and Lyn Irwin, bought four acres of land and started building the Beerwah Reptile Park. The park grew and stock increased, and in 1980 was renamed to the Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park. During the 1980s Steve and Bob Irwin spent much of their time capturing rogue crocodiles together with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Some of these crocodiles were relocated to the wild, and some which could not be released were brought to the Irwins’ Park. In 1987 they opened a Crocodile Environmental Park on their property to assist with protection of the saltwater crocodile. The Crocodile Environmental Park became very popular especially for its display of crocodile feeding within the park. In 1991 Steve Irwin took over management of the zoo, and in 1992, the park was renamed to Australia Zoo. The park went from strength under the management of Steve and Terri Irwin, and Steve’s fame as The Crocodile Hunter increased the profile of the park as a tourist attraction for local and international travelers. The Zoo now cover over 29 hectares with plans for further expansion, and maintains over 1000 animals

Monarto Zoo

Monarto is a 1,000 hectare open range zoo and is home to animals from all over the world. Stroll around the park on the walking trails or take the Zu-Loop Shuttle, which is a free hop-off, hop-on service to all the special Wildlife Viewing Platforms.

See lions, cheetahs, giraffe, African wild dogs and more. Rare animals include black rhinoceros and Prezwelki’s horse.

The zoo offers behind the scenes tours, where small groups can get up close to the animals. Last entry to Monarto Zoo is 3.00pm.

Monarto Zoo is just a short 50 minute drive down the main interstate freeway and only 15 minutes from the mighty Murray River with a range of great accommodation, including bed and breakfasts and houseboats.

Melbourne Zoo

Melbourne Zoo is located in Royal Park about 4km north of the city centre. The Zoo has over 300 species of animals from all over the world in lush landscaped grounds.

Melbourne Zoo opened in 1862 on the Royal Park site, and is Australia’s oldest zoo. Melbourne Zoo was modeled on London Zoo, with formal Victorian gardens. In the early days the animals were housed in old circus cages. Picnic grounds and enhanced landscaping were added as the Zoo increased in popularity. In 1934, the Zoo introduced a collection Australian wildlife featuring kangaroos, platypus, koalas, and other native animals. The Zoo has changed dramatically over the last hundred years with exhibits renovated and new developments added such as the Trail of the Elephants, the Orangutan Sanctuary and the exhibit for Australian Fur Seals, Fairy Penguins and other marine life added recently.

Cairns Tropical Zoo

Cairns Tropical Zoo is situated about 20 minutes drive from the centre of Cairns in north Queensland. The Zoo features a range of Australian and exotic animals, housed amongst six hectares of tropical gardens. Many of the animals are indigenous to the northern wet tropics. The Zoo opened in 1980, and is part of the Wildlife Tropical North Queensland Group owned and operated by the Freeman family. (The park used to be known as Wild World – The Tropical Zoo).

Visitors can walk through the kangaroo enclosure where about sixty Eastern Grey kangaroos roam freely and meet visitors. You can buy bags of kangaroo at the Zoo shop to hand feed the kangaroos. Throughout the day there are various shows and presentations including bird feeding in the walk-through aviary, Red Panda presentation, snake show, free flight bird show, Pelican feeding, Koala keeper talk and a Crocodile show. Visitors can have their photo taken with a Koala or Boa Constrictor (additional cost), and there are also free Wombat and Crocodile photo opportunities.

Darling Downs Zoo

The Darling Downs Zoo is a small regional zoo situated on the eastern Darling Downs in Queensland, between Toowoomba and Warwick. The zoo is privately owned by Steve and Stephanie Robinson who have extensive animal keeping experience from their Robinson circus background.

The zoo which opened in 2005 features animals from Africa, South America, South-east Asia as well as Australia. The aim is to eventually display representatives of the reptile, bird and mammal life of each of these regions of the world.

Mansfield Zoo

Mansfield Zoo is located in North Eastern Victoria, about 10 minutes drive from Mansfield and 40 minutes from Mt Buller. The Zoo lies in the Delatite Valley, with views out to the Alpine Ranges including Mt Timbertop, Mt Buller and Mt Stirling.

Mansfield Zoo opened in 2000 as a wildlife park with deer and some Australian native animals. The Zoo has grown and now has over 100 native and exotic animals on 30 acres of parkland. Most of the animals can be hand-fed by visitors, including kangaroos, deer and monkeys. A Zoo Keeper takes visitors on guided tours around the zoo, a golf cart is available to take those with limited mobility around (or to give the kids a fun ride). The Zoo Keeper guided tours are held on weekends, Public Holiday and during the Victorian school holidays.

Native Plants

Australian flora

One of Australia's greatest treasures is her flora - a staggering 24,000 species of native plants have been identified compared to England's 1700 native plants.

An Aboriginal garden

Australia's native plants vary across the many different natural environments of the country. In the tropical regions of north Queensland, Arnhem Land and the Kimberleys there are many native fruit trees, such as figs and green plums. Where water is scarce in central Australia, the plants are spread thinly over the land and Aborigines rely on fruits such as bush tomatoes and quandong or native peach. While fruits are seasonal, roots can usually be dug up all the year round. This regular digging-over of the soil meant that the whole country was, in a way, an Aboriginal garden.

Plants were used for many other things besides food. Medicines also came from plants. Native mints (Mentha spp.) were remedies for coughs and colds, and the gum from gum-trees, which is rich in tannin, was used for burns.

Botanical interest and ignorance

William Dampier first introduced Europeans to Australian plants in 1703 in his book A voyage to New Holland which presented illustrations of specimens from the Western Australian bush.

On Captain Cook's journey Endeavour voyage in 1770, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander collected over 30,000 botanical specimens and Sydney Parkinson made 674 drawings on the voyage. This material was not published for another hundred years.

On the other hand, French naturalists and scientists, such as Labillardiere, extensively promoted Australian plants with the publication of seven volumes. Napoleon's wife Josephine patronised botanists and the growing of Australian plants - growing over 100 Australian plants including grevilleas, banksias, eucalypts and casuarinas at Malmaison, outside Paris.

The clearing of Australian native plants during the last 200 years has markedly changed the Australian countryside. Robin Boyd in his book, The Australian Ugliness (1960) wrote that many people regarded even eucalypts and acacias as 'primitive landscape and elements - unfamiliar, strangely primeval - which must be eradicated from the home environment'. Since the 1990s, Landcare programs and Greening Australia have begun to conserve flora and combat problems, such as soil erosion and salination, which have occurred as a result of large scale clearing.

Common species

Acacia

Acacia is a genus of around 1200 species; 954 are currently recognised as occurring in Australia - from coastal zones and mountains to the dry inland. Collectively the Australian species are known as 'wattles'.

One of them, golden wattle, Acacia pycnantha, was first collected by the Surveyor-General of New South Wales, Thomas Mitchell, in 1836.

As Australians became more patriotic towards the end of the 1800s, they began to appreciate Australian native plants more, and started a search for a floral symbol of the country. In 1912, the wattle was incorporated into the design of the Australian Coat of Arms.

In Spring, beginning in September in Australia, the golden wattle comes into flower with large fluffy, yellow, sweet smelling flower heads. Each flower head is a bunch of many tiny flowers.

Eucalyptus

Gum trees (eucalypts) are a vital part of the Australian natural environment. The only major environment where eucalypts are absent is rainforest. There are about 12 species which occur naturally outside of Australia but around 700 are native to Australia. Eucalypts serve as shelter for many species of native Australian animals and birds. A few varieties of gum leaves are the only food eaten by koalas.

Since early settlement, eucalypts have been a vital source of timber and firewood for Australians and they have been a key part of the hardwood timber industry. Soldiers returning by ship from the First and Second World Wars were able to smell the aroma of the eucalypt before land was visible on the horizon. A common use for eucalypts is eucalyptus oil.

Grevillea

The genus Grevillea is probably the most popular and widely cultivated of all of Australia's plant families. The plants occur in numerous shapes and sizes and the colourful flowers, in many cases, attract birds. Grevillea is a member of the Protea family (Proteaceae) and its close relatives include Banksia, Hakea, Dryandra, Isopogon and Telopea (the waratah).

Melaleuca

Melaleuca is a genus of around 170 species in the Myrtle family (Myrtaceae). Melaleucas are commonly known as 'paperbarks' in the tree forms and 'honey myrtles' in the smaller form as well as 'tea trees' . Melaleucas are often found along watercourses or along the edges of swamps. M. alternifolia is commonly used in the production of tea tree oil , an ingredient in many shampoos, antiseptic creams and soaps.

Eremophila

Eremophila is a genus of 214 species which are commonly called 'emu bushes' found only in Australia. They are generally plants of semi-arid to arid regions The plants produce fleshy fruits which are often eaten by birds and animals. The foliage of some species is toxic and stock poisonings have occurred although some other species are useful as fodder plants.

A common use of emu bush is 'emu oil' - as a skin tonic . Emu bush was important to the Adnyamathanha people of the northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Rosemary Pedler (1994) noted it's use for medicinal purposes.

The bark of trunks was scraped off, reduced to ash and then mixed with emu oil. This preparation was then used for all manner of skin complaints with excellent results, according to several people in the group. This is still being used today.

Haemodoraceae

Kangaroo paws are from the Haemodoraceae family, a family of herb like plants related to the lilies (Amaryllidaceae), comprising over 100 species. In general, the plants are small, clumping plants with strappy leaves reaching about one metre wide and high. Flowers have little or no fragrance. Kangaroo paw flowers are long, narrow and tubular-shaped, resembling the paw of a kangaroo, which are ideally designed for low-beaked birds.

Australian floral emblems

Vase Decoration, by Mr L. H. Howie, a student at the School of Art and Crafts, Adelaide, SA. R.T. Baker (1915) The Australian Flora in Applied Art, Part 1, The Waratah, Sydney. Image courtesy of the Australian National Botanic Gardens.

Inspiration from Australian flowers has characterised the development of unique motifs in the visual arts in Australia. In 1915, R T Baker, a passionate advocate of the Waratah and other local flora as a motif in art, craft and industry wrote:

The entire plant (waratah) lends itself to such a boldness of artistic ideas in all branches of Applied Art that it has few compeers amongst the representatives of the whole floral world...

Artists like Margaret Preston used the bold shape of the Waratah in her hand-coloured woodcut prints and this contributed to recognition of native flowers and plants as being part of Australia's cultural identity.

Australian Desert

The Australian continent is one of the driest in the world apart from Antarctica. Nearly 50% of Australia receives less than 25cms of rainfall in a year. Australian desert areas are extremely warm and are one of the most difficult places for survival of plants, human beings and animals. Most of the Australian deserts are located in central and north-western parts of the country. The total size of the Australian deserts is 2.3 million square kilometre and it occupies 44% of the entire continental area. 

There are ten deserts in Australia: the Great Victoria Desert, Great Sandy Desert, Tanami Desert, Simpson Desert, Gibson Desert, Little Sandy Desert, Strzelecki Desert, Sturt Stony Desert, Tirari Desert, Pedirka Desert.

Only 3% of the Australian population live in the desert.

Great Victoria Desert

The Great Victoria Desert is a vast sand dune and sand plain desert, and the largest in Australia. Its area is shared equally by the States of South and Western Australia, north of the Nullarbor Plain and south of the Musgrave Ranges, and is bounded on the west by Laverton and the goldfields and to the east by Mabel Creek Station west of Coober Pedy and the Stuart Highway. The desert was named after Queen Victoria by the explorer Ernest Giles in 1875, and is the largest sand dune desert in Australia. Its dunes trend east west, and aside from the major palaeodrainage basin at Serpentine Lakes it has no major watercourses. Save for a few vehicle tracks, this vast wilderness is virtually untouched by man. The internatonal significance of the Unnamed Conservation Park that lies on the South Australian side of the desert was recognised in 1977 when it was proclaimed a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO. It is one of the larges arid zone biospheres in the world.

Sandplains and dunefields are the dominant landform, forming the southern part of the anticyclonic whorl of dunes that include the Simpson and Great Sandy Deserts. The dunes are longitudinal, from 5-20 metres in height and can run for up to 100kms. Salt lakes are another feature of the desert, the best known are the Serpentine Lakes, other lake systems are the Nurrari and Wyola Lakes, Lakes Maurice and Bring, and Plumridge Lakes and Yeo Lakes in Western Australia.

There are numerous stony rises and breakaways on the north west edge of the desert, and the Musgrave, Mann, Tomlinson and Everard Ranges contain it to the north. To the south is the vast limestone Nullarbor Plain, and to the south east Tietkins Plain and the Ooldea dunefields.

Great Sandy Desert

The great sandy desert is australias sencond biggest desert. It's made up of dunes and ergs. It is a hot desert that is dry, but when the monsoons cross the north of Australia from September to April it will rain.It has a average yearly rainfall of 250mm. In winter it can get very cold with no cloud cover from above and during the day it gets very hot for the same reason. In summer you are looking at a temperature of 38-42 degrees celcius (100-108 degrees fahrenheit.) In the winter it's a plesant but still hot 25-30 degrees celcius (77-86 degrees fahrenheit.) 

The great sandy desert is flat and as the name says sandy. This desert has sand dunes. It also has sandstone country, low hills, and even chains of salt lakes. You can see most of the sand dunes from the rocky ranges and hills in the Kimberley or Pilbara. 

The Tanami Desert

The Tanami Desert covers the central region of the Northern Territory and expands over the border into Western Australia. Less than a third of the desert is suitable for pastoral use, the rest made up of Aboriginal lands and Mining leases. The Tanami Road, the major vehicular thoroughfare dissects the desert on a north west, south east axis, with the remote Rabbit Flat Roadhouse about half way between Alice Springs and Halls Creek. The prevailing vegetation is hummock or Spinifex grassland, and the landscape is typified by a profusion of anthills, or termite mounds. There are also rocky outcrops, sand dunes and salt lakes. Gold is mined at the Tanami and Granites mines, as well as the Coyote Field in Western Australia. Major Aboriginal communities in the Tanami are Balgo, famous for its vibrant art, Yuendemu, Lajamanu and Jarra Jarra.

The Simpson Desert

The Simpson Desert is a longitudinal sand dune desert that that occupies an area of 170,000 square kilometres just east of the geographical center of Australia. The southern edge of the desert is bordered by Lake Eyre, to the west stony tablelands and the rivers of the Finke, Macumba, Sevenson and Todd Rivers, to the north the Plenty Highway, and to the east the rivers of the Diamantina, Georgina, Warburton and Goyder's Lagoon. Witjira National Park is on the western boundary, Simpson Desert National Park on the eastern.

The original inhabitants were Wangkangurru Aboriginal people who lived at wells called Mikiri. The main tracks across the Simpson Desert are the French Line, the Rig Road, the WAA Line and the QAA Line. Most of these follow straight lines as they were made by bulldozers following compass bearings, hence they being named lines. The most popular trek through the Simpson Desert is from Oodnadatta to Birdsville. There are other tracks into the desert, some requiring special permission to enter, like the Colson Track and the Hay River Track. There are also endless disused lines, some going nowhere. Whilst the desert has a uniform topography and a severe climate - from below freezing on winter nights to temperatures reaching into the sixty degree Celsius range in summer, it is a place of extraordinary beauty and contains a great diversity of flora and fauna. 

Gibson Desert

The Gibson Desert is on the central Western Australia plateau south of the Great Sandy Desert, east of the Little Sandy Desert and north of the Great Victoria Desert. At its highest point it reaches 500 m. Having an area of about 155,000 km2 (60,000 miles2) of Western Australia, the Gibson Desert is the 5th largest in Australia, after the Great Sandy, Great Victoria, Tanami Desert and Simpson deserts, and is still largely in an almost "pristine" state. It is situated between Lake Disappointment and Lake Macdonald on the Tropic of Capricorn. The Gibson bioregion includes extensive areas of undulating sand plains and dunefields, with some low rocky or gravelly ridges, the pebbles have been laterised - an iron coating. There are also large areas of upland and there are some saline lakes in the centre. There is a series of small salt water lakes along a palaeodrainage channel to the southwest. Groundwater is present under the desert where it covers parts of the Officer Basin and the Canning Basin. Large areas of the Gibson have a surface of gravel, as noted by early Australian explorers such as Giles (discussed below). Geographically, the Gibson Desert area forms part of the plateau of central Western Australia.

Little Sandy Desert

The Little Sandy Desert lies south of the Great Sandy Desert and west of the Gibson Desert. It is a cousin of the Great Sandy in so far as it has a similar land form and ecology, but smaller. To the north of the desert is Lake Disappointment, a vast salt lake. Within the Little Sandy Desert are numerous rocky outcrops and small rangeland areas which rise like islands in a sea of sand. The best known of these are the Durba Hills, a popular stopover on the Canning Stock Route, but there are also others, like the Calvert Range and Constance Headland which contain spectacular Aboriginal rock art galleries.

Strzelecki Desert

The dunefields of the Strzelecki Desert fan out from the Naterannie Sandhills in a north easterly trend. The sandhills are intersected with numerous claypans and floodplains.The desert stretches from the western edge of New South Wales across to the Birdsville Track in South Australia. The Birdsville track cuts a swathe between the Tirari Desert and the Strzelecki. The salt lakes Callabonna and Frome mark its southern edge along with the northern tip of the Flinders Ranges. The deserts northern edge is roughly the woodland of the Cooper floodplain, beyond which lies Sturt Stony Desert. Through the middle of the desert runs the Strzelecki Creek, which is a branch of the Cooper that terminates at Lake Blanchewater alongside which runs the Strzelecki Track. The Strzelecki Regional Reserve is within the desert.

Sturt Stony Desert

The red iron clad plains shimmering in the heat haze gives the impression that Sturt Stony Desert is perhaps the most inhospitable place on earth. The Diamantina River flowing into Goyders Lagoon, and beyond that the Simpson Desert borders Sturts Stony Desert to the west. To the south are the dunefields of the Strzelecki Desert. Nothing could have prepared the explorer Captain Charles Sturt for his 1845 encounter with the desert that is named in his honour. Iron clad treeless plains stretch to an eternity, baking in the shimmering heat. The only trees appear to be the occasional grevilleas that line the dry creek lines. Occasionally the iron coloured horizon is punctuated by an orange sand dune that appears through the mirage. Plants and shrubs, especially saltbush and bluebush dominate this hard country, but to the casual observer all one can see is stones. Surprisingly the succulence and nutrients of these plants sustain millions of kangaroos and some profitable cattle stations, like Clifton Hills, the largest on the Birdsville Track, and the historic Cordillo Downs to the east. The southeastern border of the desert includes parts of the Moomba and Jackson gas and oil fields and there are numerous exploration sites,well sites and seismic lines.

Tirari Desert

All the deserts of Australia have their own character, and perhaps none appear as wild and windswept as the little known Tirari Desert, that makes up the dunefields and myriad of salt lakes east of the vast Lake Eyre. Typified by white sands with little vegetation and lots of salt lakes, the desert is the least visited in Australia due to there being no public access routes into its arid heart. The longitudinal dunes trend NNW-SSE, and are quite dense, their spacing around 9 dunes per kilometre on average. The desert is bordered to the south by the Clayton River, to the east by the Birdsville Track and to the north by the Warburton River. The two great rivers the Warburton and the Cooper cut through the Tirari. The Cooper slices through the sand dunes leaving steep gypseous banks. The western side of the desert contains parts of the Lake Eyre National Park. Clayton, Dulkaninna, Etadunna, Mulka, Mungerannie, Cowrie and Kalamurina Stations all contain parts of the desert within their pastoral leaseholds.

Pedirka Desert

The Pedirka Desert is Australia's smallest desert, a longitudinal dunefield to the north east of Oodnadatta. It is bordered to the north by the Hamilton Creek, where the dunes end abruptly. North of the creek are stony tablelands. The dunefield runs east almost to the border with Witjira National Park, the deep red dunes trend north east to south westThere are several bores within the desert for pastoral use. The dunes trend north east to south west, and the interdunal corridors are up to one kilometre wide.. The dunes are deep red sand, and the interdunes are made of deep red sandy loam. A large proportion of the desert lies within the Hamilton Station Pastoral Lease,operated by the Williams Pastoral Company. The land use is rangeland cattle grazing.

The Hamilton Creek is lined with River Red Gums coolibah, mulga, dead finish and prickly wattle. Grasses include silky brown top and native millet. Species such as verbine grow thickly after flooding.

A dense scrub of shrub and grasses is found in the interdune areas. The shrubs include satiny bluebush, Giles emubush, weeping emubush, and spiny saltbush. Woollybutt, broad-leaf wanderrie, mulga grass and bandicoot grass are the most common grasses with annuals like mulga grass growing after rains. The dunes support an open mulga woodland, with an understorey which includes tall kerosene grass and woollybutt.

The Pedirka Desert is accessed by the public road that connects the Oodnadatta Track with Dalhousie Springs and Witjira National Park.

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The main reason for the formation of the Australian deserts is their location. Like most major deserts across the world the they are found around a certain latitude (roughly 30° north/south of the equator) where the weather phenomena create a dry climate.

Evolution Record in Australia

Evolution in Australia

Australia is a continent of contrasts. Its interior is brown, burnt by the sun and parched for water, but its margins are kinder to life and support most of its human population. Its plants and animals are for the most part quite different to those of the rest of the world - not surprising really, since they are the product of tens of millions of years of evolution on an island continent, isolated for that great span of time from contact with other large land masses.

Evolution in Australia followed a different course and produced very different creatures, perhaps none more so than its mammals. While the rest of the world contents itself with one, or at the most, two major kinds of mammals, Australia has three: two monotremes - the platypus and echidna, many, many marsupials (not just kangaroos and koalas), but only a few of the placental mammals so dominant in the rest of the world. Apart from the dingo, which appears to have arrived in Australia only thousands of years ago, the continent's only native placental mammals are rats and bats.

Australian vertebrate fossils

Until very recently, not much was known about the evolutionary history of Australia's unique mammal fauna. Soon after European's settlement in Australia, discoveries were made which showed that even more unusual mammals had once lived here.

These included giant plant-eating marsupials as big as a rhinoceros, giant long-armed kangaroos with short blunt faces and even leopard-sized meat-eaters, related not to modern meat-eating marsupials but to plant-eating possums.

Animals such as these became extinct as recently as the end of the last ice age, a time when Australia was at its most arid. Unfortunately the history of these animals could be traced back through the fossil record no more than a few million years. The kinds of land animals that lived in Australia earlier than that could only be imagined.

Fossil discoveries at Riversleigh

All that has changed in the last decades with new discoveries of fossil mammal remains in several sites in the Australian outback. The most spectacular of these discoveries was made at Riversleigh, an isolated cattle station in the far north-west of Queensland.

Here, Professor Michael Archer and a team of researchers from the University of New South Wales and other Australian institutions are resurrecting the bones of a vast array of vertebrate animals entombed in deposits of freshwater limestone.

Riversleigh is Australia's most important source of information about the evolutionary history of its vertebrate animals. Well over a hundred different fossil sites are now known from an area covering tens of square kilometres. In them are preserved in sometimes stunning detail, the remains of animals as diverse as lungfish, frogs, crocodiles, turtles, snakes, lizards, birds (including giant, flightless birds), marsupials, bats, rats and even insects and other arthropods.

It is not just the diversity and sheer numbers of animal remains preserved that makes Riversleigh so important to science, but the fact that different Riversleigh sites preserve glimpses of life at different ages in the past - from as long ago as about twenty-five million years through to yesterday afternoon. The Riversleigh fossil deposits are of such importance to Australia and the world that they have been given World Heritage listing.

Why so many Riversleigh fossils?

Why are so many animal remains preserved so well at Riversleigh? The answer to that lies in the underlying rocks which are also limestone, but laid down in the bed of an ancient sea more than five hundred million years ago.

As these rocks were exposed on what became land, rainwater began to dissolve them. The limestone-charged run-off flowed into pools, streams and lakes.

Water also carved out extensive cave systems, ideal roosts for bats and shelters for other animals. Sometimes holes in the cave roofs formed pit traps for unwary animals. The flesh decayed from the bodies of animals which died in or were washed into caves and pools, streams and lakes. The limestone rich waters quickly encased the bones in new layers of limestone, sealing them from view, but preserving and protecting them from damage for millions of years.

Ancient environments of Riversleigh

Studies so far reveal a staggering number of different kinds of animals preserved at Riversleigh. The diversity of animal life in its older sites (late Oligocene/early Miocene) is far greater than that known from Australia to-day, even in the tropical rainforests of northern Australia where diversity is at its highest.

The kinds of land animals in these older sites include many varieties of leaf-eating possums, lots of ground-dwelling browsing animals such as kangaroos and now extinct diprotodontids, together with many different omnivorous bandicoots.

Such a variety of animals could only have survived in a stable habitat containing a wealth of food sources supporting specialist as well as generalist feeders. Modern rainforests provide such conditions and it is thought that these ancient animals also lived in a rainforest environment. Significantly, many of these older Riversleigh animals have modern descendants which still live only in rainforests. As the accompanying photographs show, the rainforests are long gone from Riversleigh, the result of increasing aridity in Australia after about mid-Miocene times (about fifteen million years ago). Fossil remains in younger Riversleigh deposits reflect that change - species diversity decreases and some kinds of animals become extinct and are replaced by others better adapted to drier conditions.

Exposed high on the cliffs which confine the upper reaches of the Gregory River at Riversleigh, is an ancient cave floor from five million years ago. Remains of animals from here include more modern grass-eating kangaroos, demonstrating the spread of grasslands as the interior of Australia became increasingly arid. Also preserved in this deposit are remains of rats - which had at that time recently invaded Australia from Asia.

These fossil rat bones are remains of the midnight feasts of the large, carnivorous ghost bats who roosted in the cave by day and hunted rats and other small animals by night. The bats have a much longer history in Australia than the rats, occurring in their millions in many of the older Riversleigh sites. Interestingly, some of Riversleigh's leaf-nosed bats have close relationships with those known from Oligo-Miocene deposits in France.

Australia's Rainforests

Queensland

You can trek through all five climatic types of rainforest in Queensland. In north Queensland, the World Heritage-listed Wet Tropics includes Kuranda Rainforest and the Daintree - the oldest tropical rainforest on earth. Accessible from Cairns, Port Douglas, Cape Tribulation and Cooktown, the Daintree is home to an incredible array of plants and animals. Cruise the Daintree River, taste bush tucker with an Aboriginal guide or sleep in a tree-top eco-lodge. In the Gold Coast hinterland, Lamington and Springbrook National Parks have sub-tropical and cool temperate rainforests dating back to the supercontinent of Gondwana. Explore them on day hikes or do the Great Gold Coast Hinterland Walk.

Tasmania

Tasmania is home to Australia’s largest swathes of cool temperate rainforest, most of it protected as part of the island’s World Heritage-listed Wilderness. These cool, dark and magical places support a rich array of life, including species found nowhere else on earth. Trek the Overland Track through ancient forests of King Billy Pine in Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park.  Get up close to moss-covered Gondwanan on the Creepy Crawly Nature Trail in Southwest National Park. Glimpse rare Huon pines on the Franklin River Nature Trail through Wild Rivers National Park. Or explore the rainforest around Liffey Falls at the northern edge of the World Heritage Area.

New South Wales

The Gondwana Rainforests of Australia spill across 50 separate parks in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland. Accessible from Byron Bay, this vast World Heritage-listed area embraces the world’s largest subtropical rainforest, along with warm and cool temperate rainforest types.  Bushwalk through the rainforest in Nightcap, Mount Warning or Border Ranges National Parks, which all flank the ancient, eroded volcano of Mount Warning Wollumbin.  Listen for the call of the rare Albert’s Lyrebird, picnic amongst Antarctic beech forest, spot native marsupials or take a scenic rainforest drive. There are also rainforest pockets in the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains near Sydney, in Budderoo National Park in the Southern Highlands and Myall Lakes National Park, north of Port Stephens.

Northern Territory

The south of World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park is dotted with monsoon rainforest. Explore it on the walk to spectacular Jim Jim Falls, which drops more than 250 metres to deep, cool plunge pools. Follow the Gubarra Pools walk or take the Gu-ngarre Walk through savannah woodlands to the edge of a billabong. Kakadu is also famous for its lily-dotted wetlands, rich wildlife and treasure trove of Aboriginal rock art. Cruise the rivers past crocodiles, barramundi and birds, see rock crevices cut by Dreamtime ancestors or take a scenic flight over Kakadu’s waterfalls and rugged escarpments.

Victoria

Victoria’s cool temperate rainforest survives in small patches across Gippsland and the Dandenong, Yarra and Otway Ranges. In Gippsland, you can do rainforest walks through Tarra Bulga National Park and Morwell National Park or wind through scented sassafras and black olive berry in Errinundra Saddle. Walk through the tops of towering mountain ash trees in Yarra Ranges National Park, an hour’s drive from Melbourne. Or hop off the Great Ocean Road to explore the lush, green world of Great Otway National Park. The Melba Gully Boardwalk leads you past cool myrtle beeches, moss-covered blackwoods and tree ferns.