Trail Log 1995-1997 - Lamar at Colorado State University

QUT. Elizabeth Saxon, sat beside me at supper, doing an honors' thesis on environmental
philosophy. John Forge, Griffiths University, in philosophy of science. He had been to University
of Pittsburgh and used some of my articles in a class there. Jerry Gaus, recently come from the
University of Minnesota at Duluth, knows Michael Losonsky and Jane Kneller. Lamont was a postdoc
at the University of Queensland and only a few months ago took a permanent job at QUT.
Thursday, July 18. Got haircut. Drove north to Maroochydore. Sugar cane and pineapple country.
Striking Glass House Mountains, volcanic necks rising suddenly from the coastal plains. Reached
Maroochydore, lunch with Robert Elliot. Toured his campus, a new university college, started from
scratch. He is Dean and was the only appointee in Arts, and therefore dean of himself. He now
has 13 faculty and will have 26 next term.
There are kangaroos on the edge of the campus.
Walked around to the beach about sunset. Surfers. Nice Norfolk Island Pine in the motel area.
Hoop pine is another Auracaria, with thick clumpy dark green foliage, native to Australia, seen here.
Bunya pine, still another Auracaria, native to Australia, not seen.
July 19, Friday. Day at Noosa National park. Noosa Heads. Walked around to the beach near the
motel again in early morning. Surfers again. Spent the day with Elizabeth Baker as our guide.
2/127 Gray Road, Hill End, Qld 4101. 07 3844 5394. ebaker@scuc.edu.au
Drove north to Noosa Heads.
Mary E. White, The Greening of Gondwana. Chattswood, N.S. W.: Reed, 1994. 2nd ed. ISBN 0
7301 0390 0. Later seen at the University of New England. Princeton University Press published
a 1990 version, The Flowering of Gondwana.
Australia as a recognizable continent is relatively recent (30-50 million years ago). Earlier it was
in Gondwana, which was all the southern continents fused together, including Antarctica. At that
time, the northern continents (Europe, Asia, North America formed a second supercontinent,
Laurasia.
On the walk from the parking area. Eucalyptus may have striped bark as well as clear bark.
The special character and uniqueness of the Australian flora depends on the omnipresence of the
genus Eucalyptus. No other comparable area of land in the world is so completely characterized
by a single genus of trees. Acacias are almost as widespread and visible.
A peculiar and distinctive quality of the Australian flora is the adaptation resulting in leathery, hard,
spiny or reduced leaves. This is called scleromorphy, and the plants whose leaves are adapted
in this way are schlerophylls. The evolution of schlerophyll adaptations is believed to be primarily
related to low-nutrient soils and secondarily to confer the benefits of water conservation under dry
conditions.
The Gondwanan forests are often thought to have been wet rainforests, and schlerophylls a
subsequent adaptation, but it is not really known that the Gondwanan forests were closed forests
or wet forests.