around cities and towns, carpeting distant hilsides, skirting its many lakes
the spectrum of trees in a variety of colours,shapes and sizes
mighty eucalypts that touch the sky like the Tassie Blue Gum
myrtle, blackwood, sassafras excellent for furniture, boat building or turning
must be something in the water of which there's plenty
but there's more besides the natives ....
Glorious, majestic specimens from the temperate zone
grown for aesthetic or practical purpose as a feature or a windbreak or shelter
in yards or a park or the botanical gardens in Hobart or Launnie
silver or golden elms, common English or claret ash, Italian or grey alder
the cypress family including Bookleaf, Monterey, Italian or Chinese Weeping
incence or Japanese cedars, redwood, chestnut, sycamore, magnolia, spruce
Douglas or Upright Scots firs, Maritime or pencil pines, oaks, larches, giant sequoia
and as if that isn't enough of a feast for the senses....
The Araucariacea giants
an ancient conifer family of which 11 are native to Australia
with a Wollemi pine as the piece-de-resistance, a survivor from dinosaur times
vast plantations of eucalypts and pines marching up and down the landscape
to be logged in the future but ingesting carbon for the present
With a population of half a million and stating the bloody obvious
Tasmanians need never worry about their carbon footprint
if we mainlanders had a hundreth of this arboreal wealth
we'd be laughing too
