Eucalyptus therapy

eucalpyt forest 

This is a wet sclerophyll forest in Australia, and there is no such incidence here, but there are a few isolated copses of eucalypts around the place. One such group graces the nature strips lining the AYE somewhere before the Normanton Park exit. There is another small colony out at East Coast Park north of the lagoon. When I walk over there, I have to go up to them and say hello and stroke their smooth trunks. Don't ask me to which variety they belong, although my father might have known (he was a botanist).

Seeing them definitely makes me smile because they remind me of Australia and the bush. I guess you can tell when an expat has been too long away from "home" when they start doing crazy things like that. The funny thing is that most Australians in Australia wouldn't give their local gum tree a second thought. It's a bit like Singaporeans abroad seeing an orchid and feeling homesick, when they are so commonplace here we hardly notice them.

I read a book about eucalypts once, it was simply called "Eucalyptus" by Murray Bail and it deservedly won an award. Briefly, it concerns a man who would only consider as a suitor for his daughter a man who could name every single variety of eucalypt on his property (and he had them all!). A surprisingly beautiful and lyrical novel which you can read about here

Besides being known as the main food for one of Australia's best known icons, the humble eucalypt (or 10% of the many hundreds of species anyway)has the potential, as yet untapped, to be a developed as a source of chemical oils for a huge number of products. Already we have eucalypt soap, essential oil, candles, incense, rubs, etc. The wood is not bad also - and Australia has some of the most amazing wood turners in the world now. Read more if you like at this rather technical site.

Gum, anyone?