Artwork 26 The Wet Season Begins—Pandanus spiralis at Umbrawarra Gorge, Northern Territory
Section 20
Pandans of Northern Australia (Pandanus Palms/Screw Palms: Pandanaceae Family)
Umbrawarra Gorge Nature Park, Northern Territory, Northern Territory
- 1. Pandanus spiralis (screw palm)
from the artist
In this painting, floodwaters surround the plants growing midstream at Umbrawarra Gorge in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Ripe fruits drop from the tree and float away, perhaps to establish new plants downstream. Lightning and fire on the ridge are typical of the early Wet Season—and provide a warning to campers to depart before roads become impassable!
The fruits of Pandanus spiralis are sizable, at 15–20 cm across (Brock, 1993/2005, pp. 276). Note the prickly, spiralling leaves, which reveal a striking spiral pattern on the trunk when they die and drop off (making the species name easy to remember!).
Their possible ancestors may be found amongst the Jurassic fossils of the Tasmanian–Antarctic region known as the Tasman Depression, and in other localities such as the famous western New South Wales Talbragar Fish Bed fossil site. Pentoxylon cycadophytes were common fossils from the Mid-Jurassic about 175 mya, and “may be ancestral to the living Screw Pine, Pandanus” (White, 1990, p. 144).
