Ode to My Mad Friend

Don’t worry, it’s not really an ode. (How do you define an ode, anyway?) But I do want to write about something that is dear to me.

I want to write about the shores of Lake Dobson and arriving there for the first time, and about the delight of a walk along a forest path in the crunching, slushing snow.

Lake Dobson eGuide Travel on Flickr — Lake Dobson by eGuide Travel on Flickr

And then I want to set down my sense of utter wonder that here, amongst the snow gums and myrtles and candleheath and purpleberry …

Lake Dobson snow 2 — by eGuide Travel on Flickr

… that here, in this sublime mountain beauty, there could also be … this.

Pandanis Urquhart Jan 05 244 copy — by Martin Baker

The pandani is a curiosity. Well, yes, you only have to look to see that. But it’s a botanical curiosity as well as an aesthetic one. Because, despite all appearances, it isn’t a tree. Two of its closest cousins look like this:

Richea scoparia near K Col Mt Field NP by Bruce Champion of APSTAS put a link smaller — *Richea scoparia* near K Col Mt Field NP, by Bruce Champion of the Australian Plants Society, Tasmania

Richea_sprengelioides Walls_of_Jerusalem JJ Harrison Wikimedia — *Richea sprengelioides*, Walls of Jerusalem by JJ Harrison on Wikimedia

The pandani is a Richea, endemic to Tasmania. It belongs to the family Ericaceae, the heath family. It should be a shrub, and a low one at that.

But somehow, a pandani always looks as if it hasn’t quite got the idea.

Alpine_Scrub_on_Overland_Track Jason Hollinger Wikimedia — by Jason Hollinger via Wikimedia

The pandani is unashamedly individual.

It is a heath plant that has lost the plot.

Pandani Waldheim by Brewbooks on Flickr — at Waldheim by Brewbooks on Flickr

In many places, the pandani doesn’t even look like a tree. It looks more like a person. I know this is a fantasy, something children shriek about when they are enlisting pandani in snowball fights. But once you’ve got that idea into your head, it can be quite hard to shake.

Of course, if a pandani does resemble a person, it is a mad one. They have mad hair.

Pandani above Dove Lake Brew Brooks Flickr — Above Dove Lake by Brewbooks on Flickr

At other times it seems bizarre to say pandanis look human. Sometimes they seem completely alien — wild visitors, escaped from an episode of Doctor Who.

Either way it’s hard not to feel affection for these crazy plants, these unknowable eccentrics of the forest. You can’t help it, can you? You want to rush up and give them a hug — except that you’d be scratched to bits on the hard, serrated leaves, or stuck with their pointy ends.

And anyway, pandanis don’t really invite gushing over-enthusiasm or gestures of devotion. They have a contained quality. They make a weird rattling when the wind blows, but even that feels private: not so much a communication … more like secretive whispering. Mostly they are silent.

In fact, one of the best things about pandanis is their restraint. They aren’t waiting there to entertain you. They just are.