Since childhood I have loved the Australian black Wattyl. Even though its prickly trunks often tore my skin climbing them and my hands became covered in sticky sap, it’s the tree of springtime and the promise of the delights of summer that are almost here.

With its fine grey green foliage and burgundy sap streaking its smooth black and grey trunks they sit there in the forest overshadowed by the larger blackwoods and eucalypts until suddenly in August they simply erupt.

In no time covered from head to toe with millions of tiny iridescent yellow flowers. Becoming giant balls of yellow in the greens and greys of the forest. And when they do the whole forest lights up. Spring is here.

And almost as suddenly the yellow is gone and the eucalypts are dusted with the reds and bronzes of their own new shoots.

The colours of nature are not static. They change constantly. And each and every gradation is for a precise purpose. Nothing is arbitrary.

Since childhood I have loved the Australian black Wattyl. Even though its prickly trunks often tore my skin climbing them and my hands became covered in sticky sap, it’s the tree of springtime and the promise of the delights of summer that are almost here.

With its fine grey green foliage and burgundy sap streaking its smooth black and grey trunks they sit there in the forest overshadowed by the larger blackwoods and eucalypts until suddenly in August they simply erupt.

In no time covered from head to toe with millions of tiny iridescent yellow flowers. Becoming giant balls of yellow in the greens and greys of the forest. And when they do the whole forest lights up. Spring is here.

And almost as suddenly the yellow is gone and the eucalypts are dusted with the reds and bronzes of their own new shoots.

The colours of nature are not static. They change constantly. And each and every gradation is for a precise purpose. Nothing is arbitrary.