Brewer's corner...

At the corner of Gillis Road and the Petersville Road (-34 22 02 137 47 03E) is this sign. This is an intact stand of the original mallee tree - E. calycogona -which was common throughout the peninsula before European settlement in the 1870s. The corner is known as Brewer’s corner, and the reason I am here is that it is obviously part of my ancestor worship. My great grandfather on my father’s side settled here in the 1880s and my family remained until sometime in the early 1930s when the bank foreclosed and my family moved to Sherlock, on the mallee in the eastern part of South Australia. Quite a few acres of ground around here was cleared by my family, so the destruction of this tree’s habitat can be partly sheeted home to them. They continued on this destructive way at Sherlock, a railway hamlet built to maintain the train track to Melbourne, but the land is vegetated by mallee, remarkably similar to the mallee on Yorke Peninsula.

The flowers of E. calycogona seem to be attractive to the rather large ants that inhabit the region. These ants are at least 12mm long, and are found all over the blossoms on the tree. Without any references to guide me, I would say that this may be the reason the tree is protected now: ants instead of bees and birds are fertilizing the flowers.
The buds are quite distinctive, red and yellow in reddish stems. The new leaf seems to be red too, this may be a mallee characteristic. Ants also like buds, attacking them before the flower has opened.
Mature fruit seem to be covered with lerps. Ants must use these trees as fine dining, farms, and home away from home.
The base of the tree has a distinctive mallee formation, many branches close to the ground.
The trees are not that tall, only up to 3m, bushy, but very attractive on the roadside.
This ruin is my great grandfather and mother’s house. Built of the stone they picked from the paddock around them. Just up the road is the ruin of mr grandfather's house. They had a square mile of this country. The north west corner of which is a very low mountain, Mount Misery. Those who know me might find that amusing.