I decided to depart from my recent focus on ironbarks to try to identify this lovely tree, growing alongside the tram line.
This one is not an ironbark… it is a stringybark. Here’s a bit more detail.
All the usual reservations about my skills in eucalypt identification apply, but Euclid and I reached the conclusion this is E.Acaciiformis, wattle-leaved peppermint.
I ran a test pot last week and got a strong, bright orange… so I’m trying out a bigger pot. I’ve been running pot after pot with the same water and fresh bark over the last few days, but for this, some fresh, clean rainwater.
I brought the pot up to below a boil, then simmered for three hours, adding my fibre after the first hour and taking out leaf material after the second to allow more room for fibre circulation in the dye bath.
This is the result on merino and silk (on the left). The braid on the right has been dyed with E Scoparia bark. It is quite striking to see the difference between dye take up on the wool and the silk. All my sample cards suggest this outcome, and so do leaf prints really: I get colours I prefer on wool and cellulose fabrics rather than silk personally, though I see that other dyers love using silks. It does seem very different to the usual expectation about how these fibres will take up dyes.
Local & Bespoke 