The Wedderburn CMN At Work - Endangered Plants In Our Focus Area

The Northern Golden Moth Orchid - Photograph J Van Veen

The Northern Golden Moth orchid like the spiny rice flower, the velvet daisy bush and the Jericho wiregrass plant, belongs to a group of rare endangered species of plants which have been found growing within our focus area. Members of the Wedderburn CMN are active in supporting the propagation and re-introduction, to carefully selected sites, of these plants. See the article below dealing with the northern golden moth orchid.

The Velvet Daisy Bush

Velvet Daisy-bush is a perennial soft-stemmed low sprawling shrub to 1m high, and may cover 2m in area with open sparse clumps of shoots arising from roots or horizontal branches. Three locations across northern Victoria where the Velvet Daisy-bush survives naturally have been confirmed, including sites at Wedderburn, Rushworth and Myola. The population at Rushworth is the largest in northern Victoria supporting about 60 individual plants. One plant was recently discovered growing in our focus area.

The Spiny Rice Flower

Spiny Rice-flower (Pimelea spinescens subsp. spinescens) is a small native shrub 5-30 cm high. The spine tipped nature of the stems distinguishes Spiny Rice-flower from all other Rice-flower plants. Spiny Rice-flower has been classified as 'Critically Endangered'. This plant like the two shown above has only recently been found in our area. Seed has been collected from the plant by members of the Wedderburn CMN and sent to the seed bank in Melbourne to be propagated. The propagated plants will then be replanted back into suitable habitats in our focus area.

Kamarooka Mallee - Photograph Wendy Murphy

Kamarooka Mallee is endemic to Victoria, and restricted to three main areas. In the Wedderburn CMN area, the Kamarooka Mallee on private land will possibly die out as there is no regeneration. There are, however, some stands reserved in the Wychitella Flora and Fauna Reserve and on roadsides. These roadside populations need to be carefully protected.

An article on the northern golden moth orchid appeared in the Autumn 09 newsletter of Bush Heritage Australia. Below is that article reproduced with the kind permission of the editor.

Endangered orchid found at Nardoo Hills

We have confirmed the occurrence of a very rare orchid – the northern golden moths or Diuris protena – at Bush Heritage Australia’s Nardoo Hills reserves. The newly described orchid was listed under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act in 2007, and is only found in Victoria where it is classified as endangered. The orchid was first discovered and described in 2006 in the grasslands of Terrick Terrick National Park c.60 km to the north-east of the Nardoo Hills. Although a number of populations have been recorded from grassy remnants in recent years, many sites are very small and vulnerable to a range of threats. The Nardoo Hills population of over 400 plants is the largest in Australia, and occurs in species-rich grassy yellow box woodland on the slopes of Mount Kerang.
Bush Heritage’s ecologist David Baker-Gabb first spotted the orchid last year and alerted Deanna Marshall, Senior Flora Officer with the Department of Sustainability and Environment. They then had to wait for the plant to flower again before it could be collected and formally confirmed. The wait was worth it, says Deanna. ‘It’s a really significant find because of the population size and because it’s on secure land.’ The discovery is very good news for the orchid’s long- term survival.
The presence of the orchid at Nardoo Hills suggests that restoration work at the reserve is really paying off. As Bush Heritage ecologist Paul Foreman says, ‘I’m sure all that rabbit and weed control work done by David Baker-Gabb, Jeroen Van Veen and many volunteers has had something to do with it.’ Previously grazing by rabbits and stock would have restricted flowering and therefore threatened the orchid’s long-term survival on the property.
Discussions with the Victorian Herbarium indicate that the likely pollinator for the orchid is a native bee that also pollinates bulbine lilies that are similar in size and colour to the orchid. Bulbine lilies are widespread across the Nardoo Hills.
The Victorian Herbarium is keen to collect seed from the population as a contribution to the Millennium Seed Bank Project. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, UK, are running the project, which aims to conserve 10 per cent of the world’s wild plant species by 2010 – concentrating on the ‘rarest, most threatened and most useful species known to man’.

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