The Granite Belt is home to many different native orchids and endangered shrubs. They thrive in the granite rock environments - but once they are burnt out many of them will never recover. This King Orchid will be lost if fire reaches it.
so frightening is that the reports coming out are showing that we are having fires now where we never did before - like you are showing we are getting fires in types of forest that do not come back, do not thrive on fire like some of our forests do. This is a lovely image, let's hope there are going to be many more to see
@koalagardens The loss of Binna Burra Lodge is an example of what you are sayin Katrina. As you probably know it is in the middle of rainforest. I still haven't heard if the Arctic Beech forest has been destroyed - what an enormous loss that would be!
@golftragic As you probably know the King Orchids occur in a pretty diverse range of habitats - so if the Granite Belt ones are lost there will be others elsewhere. However, the terrestrial orchids can be quite specific to one or two areas and really need damp spring to shoot. Fires will destroy them I imagine as their bulbs are often very close to the surface. They were one of the reasons we bought the farm - it has lots of orchids. :)
@robz I could write what I know about orchids on the back of a postage stamp, and have room to spare Rob. But what you say makes perfect sense to me. I heard on the news this morning that the Stanthorpe fire was started by backpackers disposing of 'fireplace' ashes. Derrrr!
@robz Yep, you're right. The urban rural divide has become a deep chasm in my lifetime. Pretty much all my generation had family and/or close friends on the land, but that nexus is very tenuous these days. Add in other such factors like never having to take responsibility for one's own actions (someone else's fault/Mummy will go down to the school/Daddy will pay) and if all else fails we'll sue, and you have this kind of thing happening. I despair.
