Critically endangered orchid thrives as NSW Mid North Coast cemetery provides habitat refuge
A pale yellow doubletail orchid at a Mid North Coast cemetery. (Supplied: Drew Morris)
In short:
A historical NSW cemetery is providing crucial habitat for a critically endangered orchid.
Conservationists say in rural and urban areas cemeteries often provide protected habitat for rare and endangered plants and animals.
What's next?
Conservation measures are in place to ensure rare flora and fauna are protected when found in cemeteries.
On the outskirts of a small town in northern New South Wales, life is blooming in a historical cemetery.
Tucked among bushland, the graveyard on the NSW Mid North Coast is home to a critically endangered ground orchid, commonly known as the pale yellow doubletail.
The plant, Diuris flavescens, was discovered at the site in the mid-1990s and since then the local MidCoast Council has carefully managed the area to protect the species, which only appears when it is flowering.
"They are remarkable little plants, and they occur nowhere else in the world, other than a tiny part of the Mid North Coast," the council's senior ecologist Matt Bell said.
Matt Bell says it is a great feeling to see the rare orchids in bloom. (ABC News: Emma Siossian)
"It's extraordinary to see them … when the flower spikes emerge … they have a beautiful, delicate, complex flower.
"There are so few individual plants known, so every individual is special, and to see them bloom, to know they are persisting, is a very special feeling."
Mr Bell said recent annual counts had recorded several hundred individual orchid plants, located at the cemetery and several other sites in the lower Mid North Coast region.
Conservation measures to protect the orchid include restricting the publication of its exact locations and a ban on mowing at the cemetery during the spring flowering season.
The pale yellow doubletail orchid has a very restricted range and typically flowers in September and October. (Supplied: Luke Pickett)
"If there's a burial, any orchid spikes are flagged, so they are protected from any trampling or inadvertent harm," Mr Bell said.
"The orchids do occur amongst some of the gravestones, so there's a balance there.
"It's a difficult tightrope we must walk, in order to allow people to utilise the cemetery for its purpose, but also to preserve the orchids."
Cemeteries can provide pockets of undisturbed green space within both rural and urban landscapes. (ABC News: Emma Siossian)
Mr Bell said the orchid population was generally "holding steady" and it highlighted the important role historical cemeteries could play in providing habitat refuges.
"Orchids and a variety of species that have been impacted in other landscapes, through development and other factors, are preserved in cemeteries … the nature hasn't been harmed," he said.
"So, we come to cemeteries to connect to our families and our lineages … but we can also come to cemeteries to connect to lineages of nature and biodiversity, which is really special."
The yellow doubletail orchid is a tiny plant and can be hard to find. (Supplied: Anthony Marchmant)
Graveyard habitat islands
The conservation director at The National Trust of Australia (NSW), David Burdon, said Australian cemeteries played a "remarkable" role in fostering biodiversity and conservation.
"The National Trust has long recognised that our cemeteries are not just a place of tombstones and burials, but also a refuge for lots of rare plant species,"he said.
Conservationists say cemeteries, including this one on the NSW Mid North Coast, often provide wildlife refuges. (ABC News: Emma Siossian)
"They can be introduced plants, but also native vegetation that has managed to survive intact among what is often some quite intensive development around them.
"The oldest European cemetery in Australia, the St John's cemetery … is right next door to a shopping centre and the growing city of Parramatta, but it's a real refuge for wildlife and plants."
Sydney's largest cemetery Rookwood General, established in 1868, also contains large areas of conservation land.
Loading...Rob Smart is the executive director of operations at Metropolitan Memorial Parks, which runs the cemetery.
"Rookwood Cemetery supports several rare and endangered plant species, including the endangered downy wattle [Acacia pubescens], we [also] have kangaroo grass, and a Rookwood bluebell," Mr Smart said.
"As time goes on certain areas of the cemetery become a bit more naturally wooded … they are a really great corridor of natural vegetation, with headstones that fauna, small birds and reptiles can actually live amongst."
Orchid hopes
Orchids in particular are sensitive to disturbance and often thrive within protected environments.
The Tarengo leek orchid can grow up to 30 centimetres tall and is only found in very limited places. (Supplied: ACT government)
In a rural area of Canberra, the 1883 Hall Cemetery is the only ACT site where the endangered Tarengo leek orchid is found.
Emma Cook, a vegetation ecologist at the ACT government's Office of Nature Conservation, said other rare and threatened plant and animal species were also found in the historical cemetery.
Ms Cook said the site was carefully managed to protect the species, with no general mowing permitted during spring and early summer.
"The critically endangered yellow box, red gum, grassy woodland ecological community that covers the site has remained relatively unimpacted by the agricultural activities that have led to its widespread loss and degradation elsewhere," she said.
"Across Australia, historic cemeteries and Traveling Stock Reserves [parcels of Crown land] both play an important role in landscape connectivity and providing important habitat refuge."
Matt Bell says weed control is one of the measures taken to conserve the orchids on the lower Mid North Coast. (ABC News: Emma Siossian)
On the NSW Mid North Coast, sightings of the pale yellow doubletail in bloom have been few and far between this spring, but Mr Bell said it was not necessarily a reason for concern.
"That flowering variability could be the result of rainfall or other seasonal factors," he said.
"We are still working out a lot of knowledge about this cryptic and very rare plant."