SEEDS of the rare Javan ash tree germinate best if the cassowary, a bird threatened by habitat loss, eats the fruit first.
Cassowaries are flightless birds native to Australia and New Guinea that can grow up to 1.8 metres tall. When Ian Woodrow and Bruce Webber of the University of Melbourne fed Javan ash fruit to two cassowaries, they found that more than 90 per cent of seeds deposited in the birds’ droppings germinated, compared with only 4 per cent of untreated seeds (Functional Plant Biology, vol 31, p 505). “People have been trying for ages to get the seeds…
