Eating river cherries on a river on Sunday afternoon is a slightly better pastime that picking one's nose on a Sunday afternoon. I like them but the don't have any added sugar so you might not. Syzygium tierneyanum is the main tree along rivers in the Wet Tropics.

The new leaves can be as pretty as flowers. This is Banksia aquilonia and it grows on Walshs Pyramid and at Davies Creek. It is hard to grow. Banksia dentata and B. integrifolia are similar and easier.

This daisy is the most common native daisy in Far North Queensland. It is called Helichrysum rupicola. It is easy to grow and I used to grow some from each local mountain in the same garden. The were all different, with the Walshs Pyramid form being the best.

Once apon a time, when the Cairns Northern Beaches were wild places, the season of winter was coloured by the magenta and mauve flowers of a native heath called myrtella. It still grows in the environmental reserve at the northern end of Holloways Beach. Being a heath, it grows best in vegetation that is burned or disturbed by strong winds. Its scientific name was Myrtella although it has now been changed to Lithomyrtus obtusa.

This is the bottom of the trunk of the fig tree that the double-eyed fig parrots were feeding on. A perfectly ripe fig tastes like a strawberry to me and I like to eat them. The tree is a little large and messy for a yard however and this 16 year old fig is starting to make buttress roots.

Yellow palms are starving palms. To many foxtail palms around Cairns are yellow and sick like this one. Many of these palms will eventually die.

This tree has a beautiful yellow flower followed by a beautiful red seed pod that looks like a flower.. This native tree goes by the scientific name of Dillenia alata and the are in flower now, although usually the flowers are never great in number. They can be found in swampy areas, such as the boardwark at the Botanical Gardens.

Thats what they used to be called but as the younger generation keep asking what a wireless is, the common name has now been changed to golden bouquet tree. This native tree can be found in swampy rainforest, near drainage lines in rocky ground. The specimen in the photo is beside the railway line in North Cairns. This tree has a scientific name of Deplanchea tetraphylla and it is in the same family as the African tulip.

This little gem is right beside the red arrow track (left branch). Pandanus monticola is the species name and the pandanus is a medium sized clumping plant of the rainforest understorey. Worldwide, there are about 600 types of pandanus.

Sometimes rainforest fruits are as spectacular as the most exotic flowers. The Lepidozamia cone is just starting to colour up and will go hot pink before it disintegrates. It is on the high branch of the Blue Arrow track.