If you were to take a walk around my town, you're bound to go along the river - the Barwon, named for the magpies (in first nations, magpie can be 'parwung' or 'barrawong' or similiar - hence the river's name as a dervivative). The trees are gnarled and twisted as they crowd along the bank, where ducks and cockatoos make mess and noise, and if you are lucky, you might see a platypus.

But further out, along a dirt road, and on the corner of the highway that runs into town and the road that leads down to the cemetry is a giant Eucalyptus camaldulensis - a river red gum. These gum trees can be hundreds of years old, with gnarled and twisted branches and red wood that burns well and lasts long into the night. Whilst this tree isn't on the river, it's still a 'river' red gum, spread along rivers and flood plains all across Australia. It's one of our most distinctive and favourite trees, growing up to 50 metres tall.

^{A tree of national signficance}

If these trees could talk, they'd all be arguing on their individual historic significence, let alone their collective one. Aside from providing shelter for birds and possums, they provide food for insects too, contribute carbon and nutrients to the forest floor and the local food webs, and lowering of the water table in water logged areas.

But they've also been a source of building materials, contributing to construction works for the expanding city of Melbourne since the 1800's. They've made railway sleepers, firewood, and charcoal, and piers for ports. Old redgum sleepers from the railways form garden edging here, or are cut up for firewood.

^{A tree of national signficance}

But long before that, the first people of this colonised nation used redgums for medicine and for survival. Fish were smoked in their hollows, shields and canoes were made from their bark. They were even used as medicine. Leaves were used to deoxygenate water for fishing, and they would have formed shelters too. Spears would have been made from their branches and leaves and branches would have been used for ceremonial purposes.

The tree at the corner of the highway is known to be of historic significance, protected by the Roads Authority as they put the new highway through, and marked with a small placard. It has a huge scar from a cut made many years ago, before they chased the Wadurrang and Gulan nation people from this area. It's been dated at 300 years old, and is two metres at least at it's base - I suspect bigger.

So whilst they might have dawn services in town at the Anzac memorial, and revere the old bluestone brick building that used to be the centre of the region, it's this tree I nod at as I drive past it on the way to a surf. It's so easy to miss amongst the other trees that stand at crossroads, but once you know, it's hard not to acknowledge it as you pass.

Where are the families now, whose ancestors used this tree, that stood underneath it under the shade of it's boughs?

What other trees had significance, but were chopped down by pioneers and the early settlers? There would have been birthing trees for woman to take shelter and to bury their placenta underneath, trees to smoke eels, trees to gather underneath with children and tell stories. Now the trees are lonely and their stories untold. In some areas, they are vandalised, or cut down for roads.

Some of us still treasure them. I know our town would protest against the slaughter of this tree - 300 years is longer than any of our histories here in this country. Most towns in Australia will have trees like this - they are like the famous English oak, huge and magnificent, and culturally significant for the people whose lives spin around them.

Eucalyptus Camaldulensis; River Red Gum
Small digit temperatures outside,
chunky eucalypt in ready piles.
Its muscled blocks like sentries,
on watch in garages and proximate porches.

Deep crimson and sienna combined,
some logs with the look of new-dried blood.
Formally classified and grown in Naples,
and colonists here felled acre upon acre.

The tree’s robust seed offered for exchange
by botanist, Cunningham to Chief Gardener, Dehnhardt.
Off to Italian shores with high Empire and plantsmen,
a grove’s destruction came prior to taxonomic rescue.

This hardy wood’s welcome heft on the arm,
exudes such earthen scent when spliced.
Yet River Red Gum’s density and girth,
divides the novice chopper from the expert.

Healing tree, craft and shelter for Aboriginal people,
hosting diverse creatures along their watercourses.
Tonne after tonne fed early steam power,
now best burning fuel in hungry domestic grates.

• poem by Katherine Healy

This is in response to a Ladies of Hive challenge that askes us to talk about a place of historical significence in the town we live in.

With Love,

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