There is good reason for bushwalkers to dread and detest the plant, and many a tall tale has been told of encounters with it.
Found only in the wet forests of Tasmania’s rugged West and North-West, horizontal scrub grows mainly in wet gulleys and boggy areas.
The plant sends up slender stems towards the sun; these stems fall over under their own weight, and then send up new shoots. In this way, a single plant can become a massive tangled thicket – a ‘road block’ on the bushwalker’s track.
The tops of these thickets appear as solid-looking platforms, inviting the unwary bushwalker to attempt to cross rather than looking for a way around.
The innvariable result is that a slippery, moss-covered stem or rotten branch causes a rapid descent into the depths of the bushy mass, the branches closing in again over the victim’s head.
The terror of being trapped six metres down in such a natural prison defies description!
Dramatic as the horizontal story is, there is a brighter side. In fact, the bushwalker may well have missed the wood for the trees!
Few people are aware that this treacherous scrub can also grow as a handsome small tree, up to a metre and a half around the trunk.
Such trees, as well as the smaller scrub, produce a remarkable timber.
The characteristics of horizontal timber have been long known by the old bushmen, who always kept a bundle of stems soaking in a nearby creek to act as makeshift axe handles.
Even in small diameters, the timber is remarkably strong and light. Being a slow growing tree – perhaps adding only one or two millimetres in diameter each year, the wood is very fine-grained and even.
The colour of the timber varies, depending on where it grows, ranging from a light straw through to a rich honey colour.
These days, a number of craft workers are discovering for themselves the value that the bushies recognised in horizontal.
Fine Timbers of Smithton has been supplying horizontal to a number of local craftsmen, who are delighted with the way it handles. The wood works very cleanly and is versatile, even the smallest branches can be used.