IT IS said that when the swamp paperbark is in bloom, the snapper are on the bite. They must be biting now because it has been magnificent this spring.
It flowered early this year, and we don’t yet know whether its pollinators were around to set the seed. My seed collectors group will be keeping an eye to see if the seed is viable. Swamp paperbark is so prolific that we don’t usually sow the seed, though we do include it in some direct seeding mixtures. We used it on the Rifle Range Reserve, of course.
I have long thought it should be Wonthaggi’s floral emblem. Wonthaggi was once a vast paperbark swamp interspersed with sheets of water and sand hills vegetated with heaths and eucalypts.