Soldiers Memorial Avenue in Hobart gives threatened plant species chance to thrive
/ By Lucie CuttingThe creation of a soldiers' memorial in the early 20th century has given native plant species a chance to thrive in a pocket of Hobart city untouched by development.
Once part of an open grassy woodland, The Soldiers Memorial Avenue at the Queens Domain provides protection to now rare and vulnerable species that would have existed in other locations prior to white settlement.
Tiny berries such as native cranberries shelter beneath trees planted on the avenue, providing an unexpected window into Hobart's past landscape.
Hobart City Council fire and biodiversity program officer Melanie Gent said trees had provided a "sacred area" for the vulnerable and threatened species.
Long grass a positive change
Tasmanians who took to the Domain to remember fallen war personnel on Anzac Day may have noticed an unmown patch along the more than century-old memorial avenue to soldiers.
The tall patch of kangaroo grass, Themeda trianda, points to a change in landscape management of the area by Hobart City Council.
Ms Gent said the council looked beyond "mowing for amenity's sake" aesthetics to habitat health.
She said a low-intensity burn would move through the kangaroo grass in autumn, a practice implemented by the council to promote diversity in the grassland and to reduce decayed plant matter.
"If we leave it too long without fire, things start to almost turn into a bit of a monoculture," Ms Gent said.
"[Fire] is a really important component to help reinvigorate all those [native plant] species."
Rare and vulnerable treasures can be found among the sway of tall kangaroo grass and in the shadow trees planted to memorialise fallen soldiers.
"It might be difficult if you don't know what you're looking for," Ms Gent told ABC Hobart Evenings presenter Helen Shield.
She said it became easier for the keen eye or plucky internet researcher in the right season.
There have been 22 species of threatened plants recorded within or close to the avenue.
Ms Gent said seven of them were found within the avenue footprint.
She said plants were best viewed in summer or spring when delicate flowering species became more visible.
"We have a beautiful threatened species called Vittadinia muelleri, that's a narrow-leaf New Holland daisy," Ms Gent said.
"That is one of our rarest plants [within the avenue footprint]."
She said Scleranthus fasciculatus, known as the spreading knawel, was another vulnerable plant species.
She said double-jointed spear grass, mountain sedge, leafy fireweed, and woolly New Holland daisy were also rare plants that could be found within the avenue footprint.
Century of protection
The first of more than 500 trees were planted on the avenue in 1918 and 1919, creating hallowed ground for Tasmanians to acknowledge lives lost to war.
The avenue remained largely untouched as the city of Hobart grew around it.
But it was carefully tended to because of its significance to the community.
Friends of Soldiers Memorial Avenue president John Wadsley said Tasmanians forged a strong connection to the avenue.
"We hear lots of stories of during the long hot summers when mothers would carry buckets of water from maybe North Hobart or West Hobart to water trees," Mr Wadsley said.
"That was the level of commitment to a son, to a husband, to a brother, or to a sweetheart."
Mr Wadsley and his team of volunteers cleaned the plaques in preparation for Anzac Day.
Handmade poppies, sprigs of rosemary, and information about soldiers, left by family members, remained in the days afterwards.
Ms Gent said trees planted on the Domain, that were subsequently replaced if dead or in poor condition, provided extra protection to other plants because of space left for them to grow.
"Species have continued to sort of tick along just underneath in those areas where it's been a little bit less disturbed with mowers and people walking or recreating," Ms Gent said
"We're pretty lucky that the Queen's Domain was set aside early on in the white settlement of Hobart Town."