Popular Botanics

Nestled in the valleys and slopes of Western Australia's southern high rainfall zone grow three remarkable species of eucalypts. Collectively known as Tingles, these large trees are unique to a strip that runs along the southern margins of the ancient granite block which forms much of Western Australia.

This very diverse landscape of steep sided valleys intermingled with shallow peaty swamps, dissected laterite plateaux and domed granite outcrops creates a complex ecological pattern known as the Tingle Mosaic. However, while the mosaic's communities spread over almost 4000 square kilometres, the trees for which it is named exist only in scattered pockets, hugging moisture and specific soil types. The name 'tingle' is probably derived from Noongar: the term dingul dingul was given as the local name for yellow tingle (Eucalyptus guilfoylei) by botanist JH Maiden in 1911. The best known is Red Tingle, the species to which the popular tourist attraction the Giant Tingle belongs. Red tingle is one of the state's largest trees (outstripped only by karri) and old individuals are truly magnificent - they have an enormous, buttressed base, a single trunk and a dense, compact crown at a height of up to 70m. Early 20th century foresters recorded trees over 70m in height with 100ft (30+m) sections of unbranched trunk and nominated them "the finest tree in the state".

The Tree-Top Walk in Walpole protects the trees below.

The base of the trunk is commonly hollowed out by fire, creating a large internal cavity - so large, in fact, that photographs from earlier times show trees with a car parked inside! This width confers stability - in addition to being hollowed, the roots are not deep and the trees would otherwise topple over. Such shallow rootedness was one prompt for the construction of the Tree-Top Walk in the Valley of the Giants (Walpole). In the 1980s, it became clear that increasing foot traffic was causing significant damage to the trees and measures were needed to protect them. Red tingle wood is (unsurprisingly) dark pink to reddish-brown and was previously used in structural applications, railway sleepers and furniture. Its small flowers are white, and produced in late summer and early autumn. Rates Tingle (Eucalyptus brevistylis) is externally similar to red tingle - the bark, leaves and flower colour are very much alike - but the trunk is shorter (25-30m), not buttressed at the base and has yellow wood. In this last respect, Rates tingle resembles Yellow tingle rather than red. Like the red tingle, both Rates and Yellow tingle produce white flowers in summer; however, Rates tingle can continue blossoming until April or May and flowers are collected into groups of 9 to 13, instead of the sevens found in other Tingles. The buds of Rates tingle are tiny - only 3 mm in both width and length. This species has the smallest distribution of all three tingles, occurring in only a few locations north-east of Walpole. The common name commemorates the first local Walpole forester John Rate, who discovered it in the 1950s. Despite its common name, Yellow tingle (Eucalyptus guilfoylei) is not closely related to the other tingle trees; in fact, among the more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, it seems to have few close relatives at all. Three features make it easy to separate from other tingles if you have the right materials: the leaves have few (or no) oil glands; the groups of flowers develop at the ends of leafy branchlets; and the fruits are barrel shaped rather than almost spherical. Tingle forests need the mild and wet climate of WA’s far south to flourish and create within themselves moist refuges for other organisms. These include barkinhabiting spiders and forest fungi that may be relics of a time when Australia was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. As such they are precious places to be celebrated and cherished.

Many of these giant trees have been hollowed out by fire.