“That small six-legger that looks like an oversized guinea pig?”
“That’s the one. The tumbuck, John, knows what that certain song means, too. It can’t climb, but it’s about the only critter with strong enough teeth to crack a chimer nut. When the ripe nuts drop to the ground, it cracks them open and uses its long, thin tongue to hunt around inside the nut, not to scoop out the seeds, which it ignores, but the insect eggs.
“It’s the saliva of the tumbuck, deposited as it seeks out the bola eggs, which initiates the germinating process. The tumbuck leaves the nut alone and goes off hi search of other egg-filled ones. Meanwhile the seed is still protected by most of its shell.
“Stimulated by the chemicals and dampness of the
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tumbuck saliva, the first roots are sent out through the crack in the shell and into the ground. The young plant lives briefly inside the shell and finally grows out through the same crack toward the light.
“It’s the song of the massed trees that’s the key. That’s what took me twenty years to figure out. No wonder bola beetles and tumbucks ignored the nuts of the transplanted chimers. The music wasn’t right. You need at least two hundred and six trees—the full orchestra.”
Caitland sat on the wooden bench cut from a section of log and thought about this. Some of it he didn’t understand. What he could understand added up to something strange and remarkable and utterly magnificent, and it made him feel terrible.
“But that’s not all, John Caitland. My biggest discovery started as a joke on myself, became a hobby, then an obsession.” There was a twinkle in her eyes that matched the repressed excitement in her voice. “Come to the back of the warehouse.”