Grasstree resin varnish
Resin balls found under xanthorrhoea preissii My sis and I were bushwalking in the Perth Hills in Western Australia one day and whilst we were looking for something completely different my sis, who is great at finding little things like miniature flowers and the like, showed me what she had just spotted. Odd looking dark red balls. Lighter then stone. Nuts? They seemed slightly glassy... We took a few home and started investigating. Was it resin from a bloodwood gum that had formed into balls during a bushfire perhaps? Lots of theories. No answers. After an extensive Google search we finally found out they are resin balls, or globules, from a grasstree : found at the base of the grasstree. These ones are from the Western Australian grasstree, to be specific, xanthorroea preissii . Some of those grasstrees are huge - taller than 5 metres... and very slow growing. One to two centimetres a year... which makes some up to 600 years old. pounded and diluted with metho as solven
