The Button Plant 
Often called the Button Orchid, but is not an orchid, Dischidia nummularia.  This wonderful plant is a trailing-scandent epiphyte which means it does not require its roots to be in soil, it obtains its sustenance from the air. A root climber that grows on the flakey bark of branches of Melaleucas and other trees of the swamp and along streams, the long trailing stems can be seen all through Cooktown Botanic Gardens festooned from the weeping paperbark trees.

Button plant because the leaves are rounded buttons, (nummullaria = like a coin) and thick and succulent.

Strangely, as this plant is often found growing with our Myrmecodia beccari, the Ant House Plant, which houses a particular species of ant, there was a reference to the Button plant as “myrmecophilous or ant-loving plants, several Dischidias are particularly intriguing. Ants inhabit the inflated, often hollow leaves, using them as nurseries for their young and as garbage dumps. The plants benefit from the ants' carbon dioxide and waste products”.  Further research is needed!

The tiny white flowers appear in spring or summer.

Propagate from stem cuttings, division or seed. Needs shade or it loses its colour. It can be grown as a hanging basket or pot, or on moss or bark. It likes bright light but not direct sun over the plant. The mix needs to be kept moderately dry between waterings, misting the plant once or twice a week should do the job. Liquid feeding once a month with half strength is adequate.

This plant was painted by Vera Scarth-Johnson and collected by Banks and Solander in 1770 when they came on the Endeavour, painted by Sydney Parkinson and is one of the 15 that now belong to Cooktown, courtesy of the Cooktown Discovery Festival and Cook Shire Council and RADF. and part of the Banks Florilegium exhibition at Natures Powerhouse from June until the end of August.

The Rusty Guinea Flower or Guinea Bush, Hibbertia banksii is one of the Banks Florilegium species and the living plant can be seen in the gardens.

 (Hibbertia after Dr George Hibbert, English botanist (1757 - 1837) and banksii after Sir Joseph Banks (as are many of our native plants, including the Banksia).

This is a beautiful ornamental small shrub to 2 m high having one-sided terminal leafy branches of rusty brown buds and golden yellow flowers, five-petalled, and rusty-brown tomentose (soft downy hairy) covering the entire plant.

This north Queensland plant can be found back of all our beaches and other heathy, sandy areas as well as open forests and along streams. It is flowering now and often at other times and I have seen it in Endeavour National Park at Stonewall, Marton. Long lasting as a cut flower, it can be grown from seed or from cuttings of firm young growth.  Prefers sandy soil or at least good drainage, a semi-shady spot and the god of gardening in our dry tropics, mulch.

This lovely little shrub can be seen in Cooktown Botanic Gardens. It was painted by Vera Scarth-Johnson and collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander in 1770 with Captain Cook on the Endeavour.  The Banks Florilegium exhibition at Natures Powerhouse has both Vera’s painting and the Banks Florilegium engraving of Sydney Parkinson’s drawing of the plant on display now, not to be missed!

The Banks Florilegium is on display in Natures Powerhouse Interpretive and Visitor Information Centre in the Botanic Gardens, until the end of August, not to be missed!  One of the plants on display, collected by Banks and Solander in 1770 whilst on the Endeavour with Captain Cook, was the

Canavalia rosea or Beach Jack Bean, Beach-bean, jackbean , maunaloa, puakauhi, wonderbean, friol de playa, Mackenzie bean, is a pretty vine that trails along the beach sand dunes in the tropics. The thick, fleshy stem can grow to 6m or more in length. The foliage looks rather like a succulent.  It has compound leaves with three rounded, fleshy leaflets which fold up in the middle of the day. The flowers are pea flowers, purplish pink, A feature of the Fabaceae family, the legumes, the nitrogen fixers.

This plant flowers in summer and sporadically afterwards. The  original herbarium specimen collected, dried and pressed by Banks and Solander and now resides in the herbarium at the Natural History Museum in Britain!  Banks had the paintings by the artist on board, Sydney Parkinson, made into copper engravings in the 1700s and paid 10,000 pounds of his own money to do so!

In 1770 Captain Cook was the first Englishman to eat these Beans at Endeavour River. In 1788 Governor Phillip and his crew ate the seeds, but evidently they had tasted raw seeds for they were soon "seized with violent vomiting".

In 1845 Leichhardt recorded in his journal finding a bean which when roasted and ground was found to be a good substitute for coffee.

Canavalia rosea (Leguminosae/Fabaceae)

Line engraving by Gerald Sibelius after Sydney Parkinson (1770) and Frederick Polydore Nodder.

Joseph Banks and his party saw this species at: Bay of Inlets, Australia, Point Lookout, Bustard Bay (22 May - 24 May 1770), Palm Island, Australia (7 June 1770), Endeavour River, Australia (17 June - 4 August 1770)

Flowering in June in Cooktown Botanic Gardens?

Haemodorum coccineum, Scarlet Bloodroot. Haemodorum; From Greek haima, blood and doron, a gift, a reference to red rootstock of this genus.  coccineum; From Latin, coccineus, scarlet, referring to the red colouring of the flowers.

This plant was collected by Banks and Solander in 1770 and is one of the prints produced from Sydney Parkinson’s drawings from the Endeavour voyage, and one that now belongs to Cooktown. You can see this plant now on display in the Gallery from the Banks Florilegium and Vera Scarth-Johnson's painting, and the living specimen in the Sand Garden. What is really amazing is that this plant would not have existed above ground in June, its dormant period. The specimens in the Botanic Gardens and around Cooktown die back after the wet season, they don’t exist above ground. So how did Sydney Parkinson draw this plant in June 1770? 

Perhaps this was a very late wet season or the seasons were different!  I remember when the wet season started in October, and went til March, now February to April, perhaps our seasons are changing regularly…

This herb of the open woodland or forest is related to the Kangaroo Paw and the grass/strap like leaves arise from an underground rhizome. The dark red flowers appear on a stiff erect stem to 1m high from the rhizome in Oct-Mar. The growth of the plant is dominated by the wet/dry climate of its native habitat. The plant dies back to the rhizome during the winter dry season and reappears during the summer wet season. The fleshy 3-lobed red capsule with red-purple juice appears Nov-Mar-May.

The flowers and roots were/are used by the aboriginals to produce purple-red dye for baskets and bags; reportedly used against snake-bite; dry stems sometimes used for fire-sticks.

Research is being carried out as to its potential as a cut flower because of long life of the vibrant red flowers and the fact they flower during the northern hemisphere’s winter when red flowers are in demand,  a time when red flowers are highly desired on global markets for Christmas, Chinese New Year and Valentines’ Day.  However, the plant is a truly tropical one and doesn’t grow outside of its requirements. Despite being very easy to propagate, growth appears to require soil temperatures in excess of 22ºC at rhizome depth. This unique dormancy mechanism may limit production to tropical environments.

A special thing about Haemodorum species is that they allow only specialised bees to enter and pollinate their closed flowers, thus eliminating other nectar competitors.

June in the Gardens

Hibbertia banksii, Collected by Banks & Solander in 1770,
Living specimen of one of the Banks Florilegium prints on display in Natures Powerhouse in the Vera Scarth-Johnson Gallery.  The Banks Florilegium exhibition contains 15 of these prints from the copper engravings made by Joseh Banks in the 1700's from Sydney Parkinson's botanical illustrations of the plants they collected on the Endeavour River in June 1770.

The amazing bugs (not beatles) are clustered under leaves. They seem to be resting or maybe socializing.	Red flowering Bromeliad	Blood Red Tassel Flower (Calliandra haematocephala), has these powder puff flowers all over the shrub.

Cooktown Botanic Gardens

Cooktown Botanic Gardens

Cooktown Orchid, State emblem for Queensland

Established in 1878 the Gallop Botanic Reserve encompases 62.3 Ha (154 acres) on the edge of Cooktown and contains the Cooktown Botanic Gardens and walking trails to Finch Bay and Cherry Tree Bay.

Cooktown Botanic Gardens Today
Guided tours of the garden April-October
Educational and Research Groups and other groups at other times by appointment with
Sandy Lloyd, Curator, 0437 910883.