Sylvia van der Peet
Since the Mt Lubra fires in January/February 2006 the Grampians Pin-cushion Lily (Borya mirabilis) colony has been monitored on a quarterly basis. Initial site visits showed that the plant was capable of regenerating from root stock. On the first visit there was no sign of any vegetation above ground. Three months later around 20% of plants were showing signs of regrowth, six months post fire around 50% of plants were showing signs of regrowth. In May 2008 only 42% of plants were showing signs of regrowth, indicating that the plant may be struggling a little, which may be due in part to the lack of rainfall received post fire.
After discussion with the Borya Recovery Team it was decided to return to the monitoring methodology designed by Fiona Coates (ARI), which was used before the 2006 fire. This involves running a tape across the widest part of each individual plant and inserting a metal pin at one centimetre intervals and recording if the pin touches live or dead material or empty space (void). As the plants are still small this method produces a somewhat less encouraging picture than the method used post fire, indicating 92% of the entire population dead or void and only 8% alive, although 30 out of the original 71 plants are alive.
Colonies 1, 4, and 6 do not currently contain any live plants (although Colony 4 did have living plants post fire these subsequently died). Results of monitoring the other colonies using the ARI method indicates:
Colony 2 6% alive 94% dead/void
Colony 3 3% alive 97% dead/void
Colony 5 8% alive 92% dead/void
Colony 7 21% alive 79% dead/void
Visual inspection of all colonies confirms that Colony 7 is doing the best with Colony 5 coming second. Both these colonies contain plants that produced a small number of flowers last spring.
Colony 7 plant 8 has been monitored more closely since the 2006 fires, and the photos on the web site help to demonstrate the change in dessication that can be seen at each seasonal visit. Lets hope that in November when monitoring occurs that this plant is as green as it was in November 2007.
There still appears to be a distinct trend in the growth pattern with plants increasing in size from winter to spring and then decreasing in summer when they dessicate and turn orange. The average width of plant 7.8 had increased by 4% but the average height was 2% less than observed in May 2007. A number of plants are now developing secondary crowns. For example Plant 7.8 now has 11 crowns compared with 8 in February 2008.
Regeneration of competing species appeared to be crowding the Borya out in some places. We were intitially concerned that this could be detrimental to the Borya recovery. However crowding now seems to have become less of an issue. Some seedlings have since died while remaining seedlings are providing shade and protection, which could be benefiting the plants.
The Borya is due to be monitored again in November 2008 when we hope to see more positive regrowth.