Another Red Gum

[alpineart]

This was snapped on a drive to Heyfield in East Gippsland

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.Currently working on a few Natives , not quite as big as this one but hopefully it will be rather impressive when presented .Cheers Alpineart

[Damian Bee]

Mmmmmmm Mmmmm.

Looks like you snapped that one mid stride on its way down to the local creek Alpine, at least you know that you wouldn't need a tent in that part of town

[lennard]

Now that's my kind of tree!

Love it

Lennard

[Mitchell]

Hey Alpine! Great shot mate!
I have often seen these "fire hollowed" trees before, though this is the first time I have contemplated their formation. Is this tree simply lucky and the intensity of the fire could not burn the green non heartwood? Was it extinguished by human hand? Given this hollowed effect is common place and many trees like reds bump back afterwards well, I wonder if there is more to this simple effect than a nice looking shari. Do these trees have a safety mech, built into their genetics which has adapted to a fire hardened landscape? It all seems to be of a somewhat sacrificial nature, allowing a mass of combustible heartwood at the base to satisfy the fire front burning needs until it passes, then is smothered out/ contained within the heartwood core.

Thanks Alpine just musing to myself. Great inspiration their.


Edit- just examining the shots again, two things to note in regards to the above-
Younger trees behind not fire effected, was the fire before them?
The fire appears to have traveled up the main trunk, through into the secondary and hollowed them completely too, either that or it's die back. But given their thickness, it appears as the fire may have indeed hollowed the entire tree out.

[alpineart]

Hi Fella's , theres plenty of inspiration out there . This could be a result of the 1965 Bush fires that ravage Victoria , Its the only major fire event in the area that could explain the younger un-effected trees , or it could have been a Lightening strike as the main trunk has a full lenth spiral jin from top to bottom . It was 200m off the road so i didn't investigate it at length . Note the dead tree in the background has the same hollowed base .Cheers Alpine

[FlyBri]

Gday folks!

Great looking River Red, Alpine! I wonder if this could be an Aboriginal shelter tree...

Thanks for sharing!

Fly.

[alpineart]

Hi Flybri , i dont think its old enough for a shelter tree , being close to a main road , if it was it would be fenced off and claimed by the East Gippsland Aboriginal trust . There was about 30 in the immediate area with the hollowed bases , dead and alive however the only one with the full length shari . I would put my money on the '65 bush-fires being the culprit . Cheers Alpine