I was driving down a country highway on the 25th of October, in the late afternoon sun. One of the better things to do when driving is a bit of drive-by botany. Honestly it's hard to ignore for me. I couldn't help but notice that all the new River Red Gums recruits appeared to be dead or dying.
When I use the term 'recruits', its a shortening for the word 'recruitment'. And recruitment in this context is the process by which new individuals of a particular plant species are added to an existing population. In my case this was the collective group of young River Red Gums Eucalyptus camaldulensis, the seedlings/saplings and immature trees. All of which self-seeded and surrounded the older parent tree. There can even be a 'recruitment cohort', where all the recruits are of a similar age to one another.
