Some eucalypts on desert scrub
politely share the skies,
creating lairs of dappled shade
where spinifex resides.

These mallee trees, like brollies
with their flattened canopies,
have many splaying slender trunks
at varying degrees.

Their knobbly base, a lignotuber,
helps them to survive,
should bushfire kill above the ground,
that mallee’s still alive.

Stored inside its bulbous base,
emergency supplies!
Water, food will grow new stems.
Our mallee tree revives.

Celebrating Science Week and Poetry Month 2026

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