Wetlands plants are the focus of this exhibition, in celebration of the variety and importance of plant life, and represent just a very small sample of the wide range of species found here in the Hunter Wetlands. 

The list of plants growing in the Wetlands, and propagated by the nursery, numbers just under 200. These include the tallest forest trees, mangroves, smaller trees and understory shrubs, vines, ground covers and water plants. Plants that grown in swamps, marshes. rainforests and schlerophyll forests. 

Each visit to sketch the plants led to the observation of how much activity there is in and around every plant, from insects and spiders, to the abundant bird life, snakes and lizards, and not including the nocturnal small animals not seen. All of these creatures depend on the plants for food and shelter, and each tree is a whole world in itself, drama of life and death played out hourly, daily and endlessly. 

In some of the works, the artist has added notes about each plant, and included an insect of bird found within the branches, as a small representation of the abundant life. 

Some of the small invertebrates in the works are plant eaters, like the dazzling jewel beetles, and then there’re the predatory insects and spiders. A favourite is the frightening looking and suitably named Assassin Bug. 

The conventions of scientific illustration call for each accurate rendering of the taxonomic details of each plant, so it is identifiable as that species. There are some very familiar trees included, the turpentine, a long lived and important tree in the landscape; the broad leaved paperbark which provides the bulk of the nesting site for the egret colony. and the Magenta Lilli Pilli, a commonly sold garden plant, but threatened in its wild populations because of the continual pressures on remnant coastal rainforests in NSW. 

The artist is also fascinated by the diversity in forma and structure of the seedpods, fruits and cones of the plants, and has focused on a few of these, finding them beautiful as well as superbly functional, each with a different mode of dispersing their seeds for the next generations. 

Alison Ellis is an artist and scientific illustrator living in Sydney with strong ties to the Hunter Region after studying Natural History Illustration for four years at the University of Newcastle. 

Daily at 10.30am the Magpie Geese are fed on the artificial grass mat on the edge of BHP Pond near the dip-net jetty.

Come along and watch (and listen to) the free for all at feeding time.

Other pond birds like the Pacific Black Duck, Eurasian Coots and Purple Swamp Hens join in too.

The number of birds being fed varies with the seasons.

They are fed a mixture of grains – Sorghum, layer pellets and wheat.

They are never fed bread as it is like junk food to birds.