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Brush Box Stick Insect Food Lophostemon Suaveolens Seeds
Packet of 100+ seeds!
When I say “100+”, I honestly have no idea as the seeds are super tiny, like dust or pollen. There may even be 1000 seeds for all I know? At least 100 seeds that is for sure!
I planted a packet and got several hundred seedlings after a couple weeks, just using a takeaway container to get them started(see middle of picture). Pots work fine too and from what I can see you should have no dramas get this fella started.
This is How I germinated the seeds. (Click the pics to scroll through the gallery)
Know as swamp box, swamp mahogany, swamp turpentine, this fella is a local native, super hardy, perfect for river banks and gullies.
Naturally found from the middle of NSW, right up through QLD, right up the Cape and onto New Guinea. Handles the dry no trouble at all, but can even sit submerged by a full meter for months at a time with no ill-effects that we have noticed. One of the few surviving plants around the dam after the big Bundaberg floods a couple of years ago. Some trees up the road a bit went 5meters under for a few days, 1meter deep for weeks, bare roots where the soil all washed away, and still bounced back no dramas!
It has a very ornamental look to the leaves and plant structure. Soft, velvety, reds and purples on the new growth, paper bark style trunk. It loves a prune and rebounds nice and thick.
The flowers are really striking and they smell nice too.
Now onto the fun bit, and the reason I love them. HUGE Stick insects!
Every year our trees are covered in them, and they are the main food source for them in our area. Amazingly hard to see for a couple minutes, but once you get your eye in its amazing how many there are on each tree.(Right side of picture) Often hundreds of them paired up breeding right in front of you on the larger trees, but because they look like sticks, and the tree is made of sticks, well yeah. Like a great big cooler game of “Where’s Wally”.
Amazingly, despite the huge numbers the plants never get defoliated in a major way, it’s more like an annual pruning, and once the critters lay their eggs and disperse the plants bounce back better than ever.
That’s about it folks.
