Fire sticks

One of the precious rare plants that the gully supports is Hedycaria angustifolia, or Native Mulberry. Prized by Aboriginal People for its straight, hard wood, which has been used for thousands of years as fire drills. Fire is a crucial part of human existence, for everything from heat and cooking, through to landscape management. The drill is a straight stick which is rotated rapidly between the hands while it is pressed into a small socket in a flat piece of wood such as the dry flowering stalk of a grass tree. Dried grass, leaves or kangaroo dung is used as tinder. 

The Bunurong word for the fire drills is Djiel Warrk.

It is interesting to consider how the land use has changed since the settlement of Europeans in this land. The oldest rocks on the Peninsula are likely 510 million years old. Granite from volcanic intrusions form places like Arthurs Seat and Mt Martha. Endeavour Fern Gully benefits from red soil which is also the weathered remains of volcanic soils. Other places have soil which is sandier. Each results in a different type of plant community, each with different traditional uses and ecological character.