{"id":98,"date":"2008-01-16T21:21:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-16T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pbw.id.au\/blog\/uncategorized\/prickly-pear\/"},"modified":"2016-09-21T20:04:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T10:04:12","slug":"prickly-pear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2008\/01\/prickly-pear\/","title":{"rendered":"Prickly pear"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recall seeing, on a trip to Rockhampton in about 1975, some stands of cactus that I took to be prickly pear. I was surprised to see it, as I had heard the story of the rampant infestation and the eventual control through Cactoblastis<\/em>, so I thought it had been eliminated. A newsreel from the twenties<\/a> gives some idea of the severity of the problem.<\/p>\n

I had another prickly pear surprise not long ago. The train home from work goes from Southbank Station (once Vulture Street Station) under Vulture Street and into a long cutting. At the top of one of the embankments is Somerville House high school. Staring out of the window, I suddenly noticed a healthy clump of pear at the base of the embankments. I realised that there were smaller clumps of it growing all over the stone bank on that side. As suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone; even before the tunnel under Stephens Road I couldn’t find any more of it among the angled planes of the wall.<\/p>\n

So, is this a stable population, of has someone, not too long ago, tossed a fruit down the embankment? The next year should tell the tale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recall seeing, on a trip to Rockhampton in about 1975, some stands of cactus that I took to be prickly pear. I was surprised to see it, as I had heard the story of the rampant infestation and the eventual control through Cactoblastis, so I thought it had been eliminated. A newsreel from the … Continue reading “Prickly pear”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-observations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-1A","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":107,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2007\/11\/night-vision\/","url_meta":{"origin":98,"position":0},"title":"Night Vision","author":"pbw","date":"Sat 24th Nov '07","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't enjoy aspirin the way I used to. 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