Thursday, October 4, 2012
Eucalipto
I don't know what it is about gum trees, but they're everywhere. There are lots of them here, especially in the south, and I have also come across them in Ireland and Sri Lanka.
Gum trees matter to me - I love their unlikely elegance and their ashen colours. My pride and sense of connection are almost as if I had a hand in their making. It's an Australian thing. But it's also a Tasmanian thing - our trees are a key part of our identity, although the wood most precious to us comes from other species - myrtle, sassafras, huon pine. When I lived in Ireland there a gumtree up the street from us and the smell and sight of it made me glad. But here there are too many and how am I to explain that in Australia they are not one species among many, but the tree, our tree. I feel like someone's mucking around with my heritage. Poor gumtrees, so far from home, trying to fit in...
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3 comentarios:
haha they seem to thrive in sth america & are kinda considered a "weed". Consequently I have also had to convince a sth american here & there that they are Australian, and not native to their country as they had thought. My theory is in the good old days of the India trade route, ie, Aus - India - Sth Africa - Sth America ship route they just kept taking seeds of things to plant in other places (ie like the English bringing their poofy flower plants here )
Ah ya, I like your theory - makes sense to me!
heh heh "their poofy flowers"
On her way home from 11 years away from Australia (living in London), Mum spent several weeks in the USA. She said that the sight of Eucalyptus trees in California made her achingly homesick.
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