The Daintree Rainforest

Wednesday, afternoon, 17 June

We enter the Daintree National Park.  We walk along the Dubuji boardwalk, a raised and well-worn wooden platform that wends its way through the wild. 

From the ground, we see fan palms in the foreground beneath the forest canopy.  These evolutionary innovators are amongst the oldest of angiosperms (flowering plants).  They soak up much of the 15% of sunlight that comes in from above, also blocking light for the competing trees below. 

The ancient cycad plant is older than the dinosaur.  This gymnosperm (tree fern) is well adapted for gathering light beneath the Daintree rainforest canopy. 

We spy small insects on the rainforest leaves, such as a yellow caterpillar

and a well camouflaged stick insect against a green leaf.

Eitan examines a "wait a while" or "lawyer" vine.  Their hooked stems catch on to peoples clothing, and can entangle them for a long time (whence the nicknames).  But the one-way hooks let the vine hitch a ride with a growing tree as it moves upward towards the canopy.

Our guide James tells us that aborigines use the blood tree's sap as a natural antiseptic.  He says the sap covers the outside bark, giving the trunk its red appearance. 

The blue "cassowary plum" lies uneaten on the ground, because it is poisonous to most species.  But the cassowary bird coevolved with this fruit, and so finds it a nice treat.  Without the cassowary, its sole seed disseminator, the blue fruit would go extinct. 

James then bites off the back of a green ant, commenting on how its sour taste comes from highly concentrated ascorbic acid (vitamin C).  The ants wield this acid as a weapon, but locals enjoy drinking boiled green ant colonies for their flavor and nutritional value.  Some of the tourists (not us!) bite on their own green ant. 

After a short nap, and dinner at the Cassowary Cafe (those birds were not on the menu), we prepare for our night walk through the Daintree rainforest.