- Title
- Encountering native grasslands: matters of concern in an urban park
- Creator
- Instone, Lesley
- Relation
- Australian Humanities Review , Issue 49, p. 91-117
- Relation
- http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-November-2010/instone.html
- Publisher
- Australian National University
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2010
- Description
- This paper begins at an unexpected fence enclosing a large area of native grassland in an inner urban Melbourne park. Royal Park at 188 ha is Melbourne’s largest park, and its southern corner is about 3 km from the CBD. The fence is located on a hill, sometimes referred to as the dome; an iconic treeless feature, encircled by a path it rises slightly above the surrounding parkland, commanding striking views of the city to the east. On one side of the fence green lawn stretches out across the parkland, pleasing to the eye and unremarkable in its ubiquity. On the other, in the enclosed area, native grasses rise up tall and yellow. These are kangaroo and wallaby grasses re/established to reference the original vegetation of the treeless grassy plains of the western Melbourne area. The fence is an arresting delineation of native/non-native, introduced/indigenous, colonial/postcolonial. The contrast between inside and outside is stark—green/yellow, mown/unmown, neat/messy, familiar/unfamiliar, accessible/inaccessible, alien/native. The green lawn side references the expected urban park landscape. The other side looks more like a country paddock (although even in the countryside it would be rare to find such a stand of native grasses).
- Subject
- urban parks; native grasslands; Royal Park; Melbourne, Vic.
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/926648
- Identifier
- uon:9899
- Identifier
- ISSN:1325-8338
- Language
- eng
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