Cape Tribulation Daintree Rainforest

The onslaught on the integrity of the “Blue Hole” continued over the weekend.  A local resident was distressed to find a number of men, all fully decked out in scuba gear, removing live fish by the bucketload.

The poachers came in 2 cars and he was able to get their registration numbers.  The information was reported to authorities.  Once again the official buck-passing began.  Who is responsible for the management and protection of the most sacred place in the Daintree Rainforest?

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Cycads have an evolutionary history dating back to the dry, cool age of the Triassic, when much of the world’s terrestrial landscape was inhospitable to spore-producing plants. They have carried the evolutionary breakthrough of the seed from an ancient group of now-extinct plants called Bennettitaleans, to the present.

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Often it is the small and exquisite that catches your eye as you walk through the rainforest.  Faeries baskets are like this.  The flowers are cauliflorous, growing in clumps on the trunk of the tree, and delicately shaped like a basket with the petals joined at the base.   It is a small, understorey tree with a trunk diameter of about 5cm.  It is a member of the custard apple family, Annonaceae and its fruit is remarkably similar to another small tree in the same family, Haplostichanthus.

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