90 Australian GeographicNE AFTERNOON IN Tasmania, while
driving along a back road, I saw something
black jump out and slink into a culvert
below. A Tasmanian devil!
I pulled over and was quickly at the drain with
a torch, peering at a shaggy rear end shuffling away.
Racing to the other end I was met by an unhappy face
and the damp doggy odour of devil breath and fur. That
pungent smell in a tight space made this encounter my
defining Tasmanian devil experience. It was probably also
the devil’s defining moment with a human, with my smell
contributing to its experience.
We depend on our eyes and ears outdoors, but our noses
can also deliver unique sensations full of insight. From
another experience in Tasmania I recall a hillside grazed
bare but for large groves of bushes cloaked in white daisy
flowers. I entered the paddock, crushed the leaves between
my fingers and inhaled their strong musky fragrance. The
plants turned out to be dusty daisy bushes (Olearia
phlogopappa) and I suspect they were thriving because essen-
tial oils in their leaves rendered them unappetising to sheep.A
USTRALIA IS RICH in aromatic vegetation, covered
as it is with vast tracts of pungent eucalypts and
paperbarks. Scented shrubs such as boronias, mint
bushes, daisies and more vie for space beneath. Dame Mary
Gilmore – the author and poet on our $10 note – said
that Australia smelt like the Spice Islands. “The winds
stooped as they passed because of her blossom; ships knew
her before they came to her,” she wrote in 1934 in her
book Old Days, Old Ways: a Book of Recollections.
Australian soldiers after two world wars were welcomed
home by eucalypt perfume as their ships approached land.
Nineteenth-century medical practitioners attributed a low
incidence of malaria and other ‘fevers’ to the healing vapours
of aromatic eucalypt groves. Colonial botanist Baron von
Mueller called for the construction of mountain sanitariums
where tuberculosis patients could best inhale them.
He believed that “the whole atmosphere of Australia is
more or less affected by the perpetual exhalation of these
volatile bodies”. The cry went out for a eucalypt to be
planted in every garden and the word spread. On six con-
tinents, Tasmanian blue gums, whose heady fragrance
inspired the loudest claims, won acclaim as ‘fever trees’,1
2
3
PHOTO CREDITS, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: SHUTTERSTOCK; WIKIMEDIA; HANS AND JUDY BESTE; HEATH HOLDEN. SCIENTIFIC NAMES, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT:
Eucalyptus salmonophloia; Olearia phlogopappa;Sarcophilus harrisii