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 solvent: varnish.

More research followed. What where/are their uses? My sister and I experimented with heating them up, scraping bits off the balls, untill we finally put one of the balls in a tea towel and gave it a good whack with a hammer. Like kids full of anticipation we opened the tea towel. No fossils...

The ball had succumbed easily and we found fine grains and bits of brown/red material. In the meantime we found some sites about varnish and grasstrees and that the resin dilutes in methylated spirits (metho). Out comes the bottle and we start stirring the mix in a glass jar. An iodine-coloured fluid was the result.


Next: a bit of spare wood and a paintbrush! The result in the second picture shows about 5 coats of varnish at the bottom half and about three at the top. After each coat had dried thoroughly, the next coat was applied. Coming out rather glossy too... I love the colour. I wonder if anyone has experience with varnishing wood this way - I like it!