north east regional extra | May 18 - 24, 2022
nemedia.com.au
1.
May 18 - 24, 2022
By GRAHAM CLEMENTS
ALAN Gibb was a local naturalist and photographer who loved to share his knowledge of plants with everyone he met. He recently passed away, and his well attended funeral was testament to the friends he had created through his varied interests. His life-long interest in the plant world made him an expert in his field, particularly on acacias and wattles. He acted as a botany guide on many tours including multiple tours to inland Australia conducted by the Continuing Education Centre in Wodonga in the ‘90s. Alan combined his interest in botany with a love of photography, taking thousands of pictures of plants. Some of his photographs can be seen in the Australian Plant Society Wangaratta’s “It’s only Natural - Waterwise Gardening in North East Victoria”, which is available from the Rural City of Wangaratta website. He has also taken hundreds of photos for a book, Acacias of Victoria, which is currently being edited by Neville Walsh. Alan even had an acacia named after him in 2018: Acacia boormanii subsp. gibba. “It was named in his honour for his knowledge of wattles in Victoria,” Neville Walsh said. Alan first collected the endangered Acacia boormanii subsp. gibba in 1976 at Mount Typo. “One of Alan’s goals was to write about every wattle in Victoria,” friend and retired ecologist Ian Davidson said. Alan was born in 1943 and grew up on his parent’s dairy and sheep farm in Bobinawarrah. He had two brothers, Raymond and Graeme, and a sister Lorraine. Members of his family say his interests in the natural world began early with frequent nature walks close to home with his cousins. They said he spent lots of hours experimenting with nature including attempts to transplant native flowers to other locations.
One of nature’s gentlemen ◆ ACACIA ADVENTURER: Alan Gibb with Acacia phasmoides. PHOTO: Helen Van Riet
YOUR GARDEN DEN with BELINDA
■
ANIMAL CARE
WINE TALK
with TANIA
with ANITA
Continue page 6
YOUR HEALTH H
GONE FISHING
with CHRISTOS
with ROB
Be part of something bigger BankWAW. Your local customer-owned bank. Before making a decision regarding a product or service offered by BankWAW, please consider its appropriateness to your financial circumstances by reading the terms and conditions available at bankwaw.com.au or any BankWAW service centre. BankWAW is the registered business name of WAW Credit Union Co-operative Limited. AFSL & Australian Credit Licence: 247298.
bankwaw.com.au