Thread: Remember when camphor laurel was a weed?

Originally Posted by NeilS

I grew up in Alstonville where this feral invasive tree had a devastating impact on the landscape where the magnificent 'Big Scrub' once stood. As a tree it is as bad as any weed can be...

https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/as...hor-laurel.pdf

Growing up with it as I did I've had a long woodturning association with it. One of my first pieces of woodturning was made from it in about 1959. But, I only turn with it very occasionally... its colour and figure are attractive for woodturning, but its aromatics are a bit too full on for me to spend too much time with it.

Here is a recent 21" platter that I turned from a camphor laurel tree that grew up on the volcanic plateau where the big red cedars once grew. I know which of those two trees I would prefer to see still growing there.

Attachment 536033

That's a damn nice bowl. A true centre piece on a table. But even then, sometimes the grain of the wood needs to take a backseat to the intended outcome of the turning. In your case no - brilliant job... But as per the picture below. You don't want the grain to take away from the craftmanship of the turner...

That's where I'm trying to go. Highly figured wood certainly has its place but for me a large table, a piece of furniture, or all your kitchen cabinet doors... Bleck!

Originally Posted by Log Dog

[FONT=Verdana] ...Tarzali area is loaded with them!....

Well there you go Chris - I haven't been near Tarzali for probably 60 years, plenty of time for a decent-sized tree to grow!

Sad news - with a toe-hold like that it's only a question of time before it spreads all over, there was plenty of bare ground along creek banks all over the upper tableland when I last visited the folks. CL has a very successful strategy for spreading itself quickly, with its small fruits that are attractive to lots of birds. Even birds with the rapid gut passage that most fruit-eaters have can fly a goodly distance before pooping out a bunch of seeds along with a nice little dollop of fertilizer!

There was a lot of interest in 'farm forestry' up there a few years back - some of those plantings must be getting on a bit by now & able to give Camphor Laurel a bit of stiff competition?
Cheers,
Ian

Originally Posted by IanW

A thought that just occurred to me is how come Camphor laurels never took off on the Atherton tableland the way they have here in southern Qld/northern NSW? I haven't poked about up there much in the last 30 years or so, but at least up to then I never saw creek banks overgrown with the stuff like down here. There were isolated CLs scattered about & plenty of fruit-eating birds to eat & poop the seeds all over the place, but it doesn't seem to have 'naturalised' up there - I wonder why?

Cheers,
Ian

Ian, the answer to your question is relatively easy. The tree grows up here in almost ideal conditions, it grows quickly and with little colour in the wood. Some trees that grow in hard conditions do have a little colour. As well, why would any one bother with a plain wood when there was such a wide variety of more spectacular more readily available. With the advent of world heritage listing of much of our rainforests, that situation has changed, also good quality local species are difficult to get and quite expensive. Add to that there is little demand for solid timber furniture. There is still small quantities of local species around but take some finding, most of which come from private stands.

Jim