Kurrajong magic

Kurrajong trees seem kinda unusual in the Australian landscape.

Their glossy green leaves stand out against the dull blue-grey of gums and their wood seems somewhat porous. I'd guess it allows them to store enough water to survive summer, especially as they lose their leaves every other year -- unlike gums, which aren't deciduous.

They also have these seedpods that are itchy and the trees only seem to grow from granite, which they cover with a rich soil as their leaves fall and deteriorate. And they grow very slowly, so the very old ones predate European settlement.

This stand of kurrajongs outside Wagga always seems magic to me. I like to imagine that they form a portal of some sort, as it reminds me of a scene I saw from a film in an anthropology class about rites of passage. In the film a couple split a tree in half and passed their son through it to celebrate a birthday and mark a passage into a new stage of his life.