This was the network’s first community event held at a private property in Kameruka. The attraction was a walk through a small remnant of an endangered vegetation community called Candelo Dry Grass Forest.

The valley’s very own expert botanist Jackie Miles led the walk. Jackie’s specialty is native plants and she helped the landholders identify many of the indicator species that make up this vegetation collection.

Candelo and Bega Dry Grass Forest is predominantly grass land with widely spaced eucalypts and some shrubs. Before European settlement this was how many of our rolling hills and coastal river valleys looked – which must have been very appealing to graziers.

The purpose of this walk was to give people a chance to see the array of different native grasses and herbs in this vegetation type. Bega and Candelo Dry Grass Forest have a high diversity of native grasses and herbs in the groundcover and generally feature red gums and rough-barked apple gums.

Those who came were able to bring along cuttings of unknown plants from their own property for Jackie to identify. Most were pleasantly surprised when their suspected weed turned out in fact to be a native!

The network will run more walks like this soon. If you’d like to know more, see our up coming events page or contact Dan and Vickie (see ‘contact us’ page).

See images below of only some of the plants we identified on the walk. Most of which are indicator species for Candelo Dry Grass Forest. (photos by Jackie Miles and Dan Williamson).