Enrichment Planting of Threatened Flora at Mount Compass Area School Swamp

Mount Compass Area School Swamp, which has featured previously in the NGT Monthly Newsletter, is located on the grounds of the school (60 km south of Adelaide) and is an important remnant of the critically endangered Fleurieu Peninsula Swamp ecological community. The School community puts a lot of work into managing the swamp and using it as an educational resource. A group of students known as the “Swamp Ambassadors” are particularly focused on looking after the swamp.

In April 2024 a 1.3 ha area (about 23% of the swamp) received a prescribed burn for ecological enhancement. As is often the case with Fleurieu Peninsula Swamps, the burn revealed old drains in the bed of the swamp, which NGT helped remediate to better hold water within the peat substrate. This burned and hydrologically restored area is the current focus of management.

The School was recently awarded a Grassroots Grant by the Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board to enhance management of the swamp through weed control, revegetation around the margins, enhanced Ngarrindjeri cultural connection and enrichment planting with threatened flora.

Photo: Sixteen months after the prescribed burn, the natural regeneration in School Swamp is looking excellent in some areas.

So, on a sunny Mount Compass morning on August 6th, I met seven Swamp Ambassadors, teacher Sandy Oosterwegel and Swamp Maintenance Support worker Amanda Rowe on site. We were joined by Dan Duval and Jenny Guerin from the South Australian Seed Conservation Centre (of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens). Dan and Jenny had brought along three threatened plant species we are hoping to establish in the swamp:

• Seeds of the endangered Peat Bog Eyebright (Euphrasia collina ssp. osbornii; Fleurieu Swamp form).
• Tubestock of the critically endangered Yundi Guinea-flower (Hibbertia tenuis).
• Tubestock of the endangered Clustered Bush-pea (Pultenaea dentata).

The idea is to establish new “insurance” populations of these threatened species which are under extreme threat in the wild. For example, there are only two known wild populations of the Euphrasia, with one additional insurance population recently established at Yundi Nature Conservancy (see image below). The importance of establishing additional insurance populations in suitable habitat is obvious.

With Dan and Jenny’s help, we chose several planting locations within the recent burn footprint. An interesting feature of the Euphrasia is that it is a parasite of other plants, gaining some of its nutrition by attaching its roots to the roots of its host. The relatively common swamp shrub, prickly tea-tree (Leptospermum continentale), is a known host, so we were careful to plant the Euphrasia near young host plants that had germinated post-fire.

All three species we planted are fire-responders; they generally appear following a fire while the swamp vegetation is in a relatively open state. As the swamp vegetation thickens over time, these species decline. But, provided they have been able to establish (or replenish their seed bank), they should reappear following a future fire or similar disturbance.

All plants were protected from kangaroo grazing with wire cages and locations marked with pink stakes (see image below). The Swamp Ambassadors’ role now is to monitor these plots, keeping a count of survivorship, flowering, seed set and hopefully recruitment of additional plants. It is encouraging to see such enthusiasm for this important hands-on conservation work from the next generation of environmental stewards.

Please click on the images below to enlarge them, and so that the captions don’t obscure the photo too much!

This project was funded by a Grassroots Grant from the Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board.