An orchidaceous ascent of Mount Bollard

This details our excellent adventure in climbing Mount Bollard in Tallaganda National Park.  It is a basic nature walk with lotza plants , birds, insects etc etc, which is reflected in the number of labels attached to this post..

I had been there once before and had muttered briefly with our friend Ros about a repeat trip to see if it was OK for an ANPS Wednesday Walk.  This is the story of that repeat visit.  Those donning the hiking boots (no crampons required) were myself, Ros and her husband John.

It took us about 40 minutes to get from Carwoola to the parking point alongside Wild Cattle Flat Road.  For anyone who wishes to find the spot according (my interpretation of) Google Earth the trail starts at 35:39:19 S, 149: 28 23 E at an elevation of about 1090 m.  You will find out in a few lines why I mention the elevation!  I suspect a few weeks ago it would have taken a good bit longer since it looked as though the headwaters of the Molonglo could have covered a fair bit of the road.  The basic plan is to walk along a fire trail and then ascend the Mountain: the start undulates a small amount, while the mountain only undulates in one direction for about 150m while traversing about 500m horizontally.

We began in basic woodland, with the air strongly scented by peppermint from the Eucalyptus dives.  This is an image of the bush at the foot of the walk.

There were quite a few forbs  blooming in the understorey including Comysperma ericynum  Hibbertia, and Brachyscome aculeata.  By way of example I have included a snap each of Bossiaea foliosa and Viola hederaceae.

After a couple of gently undulating kilometres we got to the serious business of ascending Mt Bollard itself.  This rises about 140m (from about 1110 m) in somewhat less than 500 horizontally.  That translates to it being rather steep.  The nature of the habitat changes rather dramatically with the trees getting very much taller and the understorey much more open.

On arrival at the top of the cliff - sorry track - we stopped for some scroggin and a look at the nice rock outcrop.  Lots of pretty lichen: for the rock fans, I am sorry that we couldn't ID the rock precisely , but thought it was something metamorphic.

The vegetation had changed yet again, this time to snow gum (Eucalyptus pauciflora).

As we selected some sticks to assist our abseil (perhaps the crampons would have been a good idea?) Ros glanced down beside her feet and squeaked loudly, meaning "orchids".  On getting down there and consulting our Field Guide to the Orchids of the ACT we decided these were Chiloglottis trilabra the "Long clubbed wasp orchid.  The next two images show a couple of examples.

These were about the upper limit of their elevation range, being about1240m.  A rough count in this area gave 10 colonies, the largest of which had about 20 individual plants.  As we went down the hill, walking a tad off the track to get better traction quite a few more colonies were found.  Getting about half way down the steep bit (ie about 1180m) we encountered some Diplodium decurvum.  For a Greenhood these are quite large and attractive!

Leaving one of these colonies - mainly growing in a low Poa  mini-meadow - I found two examples of Eriochilus, the genus of Autumn orchid.  As these were 'quite' pink, and growing 350m above the upper elevation as listed in the Field Guide for E., cuculatus, we were initially thinking that they were E. magenteus.  However is discussion with one of the authors of the Field Guide we decided that they weren't quite pink enough, and importantly, the flowers weren't hairy enough. Thus they were E. cuculatus "Parsons bands": elevation limits were decided to be insufficiently precise to outweigh these criteria. Obviously popular with at least one of the local ants.

When we finally hit the flats the excitement was not yet over as John spotted Thynninorchis huntianus the Common Elbow Orchid.

The dangling bit, in association with a scent released by the flower, inflames the passions of a wasp species which somehow causes pollination to happen!

There were some unflowering things around as well: an attractive cluster of lichen and one Amanite fungus (possibly A. xanthocephala).

We did see a few invertebrate animals as well.  Those I snapped were a red arachnid - possibly a mite (at about 3mm diameter the name would be appropriate) - a Shouldered Brown butterfly and an Australian Admiral.

I didn't take any photographs of birds.  However I wrote down 17 species without crashing into the bush to investigate details of a couple of flocks of SBBs we could hear a short way off.  My highlights were a Wonga Pigeon, Satin Bowerbird, 2 Eastern Yellow Robins and (always a favourite) a Wedge-tailed Eagle which cast a huge shadow as it cruised over the top of the mountain.