The Otway Fly Tree Top Walk - Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia

Soft Treefern (Dicksonia antarctica)

Treeferns have changed little since they grew around the lake from whose sediments the Otway Ranges were formed 120 million years ago. The Soft Treefern thrives in the damp, humid environment of the rainforest. It will grow to 12m, the fronds may span 10m, and the base of the trunk will become buttressed to support the trunk and crown.

Orchids

Heathlands - dry sandy places - are prime habitats for orchids. Some species, though, prefer rainforests. One of these is an epiphyte, growing on the trunk or branches of a tree or shrub, but not drawing sustenance from them as a parasitic mistletoe would do. It is the Gunn’s, or Butterfly, Orchid. The Maroonhood is one of the greenhood group, but its flowers are dark reddish-brown. It grows mainly on fallen decayed logs. Potato Orchids gain their common name from the large tubers they produce.

Mosses

There is an abundance of mosses in the rainforest. Several species of festoon moss are conspicuous, as they form curtains of green suspended from the branches of beech and blackwood. There is also the False Fern Moss, with its fern-like fronds and stiff, black stem with bright green shoots along each side. It is often seen growing on treeferns.

Kangaroo Fern

A climbing fern that will ascend treeferns, tree trunks or rocks, it gains its common name from fronds that resemble the imprint of a kangaroo’s foot. But other fronds are single, or with many lobes, (its specific name is diversifolium, acknowledging this range of shapes).

Ferns

Treeferns are the most conspicuous of the many ferns that thrive in the humid rainforest environment. There are many ground-ferns, water-ferns and others that provide a ground cover beneath the dense canopy of beech and blackwood. One conspicuous plant is the Hard Water fern, notable for the bright, bronze fronds of the juvenile plants.

Another interesting species is the Mother Shield-fern that produces new plants at the tips of the rather woolly fronds. In time, the fronds drop to the ground where the new plant takes root. A similar process occurs with the Mother Spleenwort. Another species, the Weeping Spleenwort, is a common dark green fern that grows as an epiphyte.

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