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Category: Western Australia

October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#6 in series)

 

 

This post’s heroes belong to the genus Stylidium.

They are generally known as “trigger plants”.

Almost all of the circa 300 trigger plant species call Australia home, exclusively; Stylidium is this country’s fifth-largest flora genus.

Around half of them are endemic to Australia’s “wild west”; the majority of those species occur only in specific parts of WA’s southwest.

On a warm day some species are much faster “on the draw” than ever was Wyatt Earp…or any other gunslinger in America’s “Wild West”.

The fastest Stylidium “trigger” can complete its “attack” on an insect in as little as 15 milliseconds.

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October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#5 in series) + musical bonus

 

 

 

The featured image’s flower heads and the musical bonus have no overt, particular connection.

Both, however, are uncommonly beautiful, exquisitely proportioned, and will reward your close attention.

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October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#4 in series)

 

I think that this post’s two images showcase the flower heads of Pimelea sulphurea, commonly known as yellow banjine.

It is endemic to Western Australia’s southwest; click here to discover more.

As is true of many WA wildflowers, each one of its flower heads contains many individual flowers.

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October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#2 in series)

 

 

The featured image shows a remarkably fresh-looking example of Anigozanthos bicolor, commonly known as “little kangaroo paw”.

On October 30 2023 there were many members of this species in bloom, but most of them looked “somewhat past their peak”.

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October 30 2023: Darling Range flora, “up close” (#1 in series)

 

In order to see “just how much is going on”, you really need to get yourself/your camera near to ground level.

This post’s heroes are (I think) examples of Anigozanthos bicolor, commonly known as “little kangaroo paw” – a petite member of a small genus of bird-pollinated plants which also includes Western Australia’s (rather larger) floral emblem.

As you can surely see, the “hero” species is but one of many different plants that were flourishing on October 30 2023 in some wandoo woodland on the drier, inland side of the Darling Range, circa 100 kilometres southeast of Perth.

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“Late” in a very “early” southwest WA spring (2nd of 2 teasers)

 

 

This post’s photo was taken not very many footsteps distant from where I took the preceding post’s featured shot.

As you can see, even a very cursory glance at today’s featured image reveals an abundance of flowering plants, in bloom.

”A marked contrast to the plant life in yesterday’s picture”, you think?

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“Late” in a very “early” southwest WA “spring” (1 of 2 teasers)

 

 

 

How do “the seasons” actually work in southwest Western Australia?

In 2023 one could reply, “they don’t, anymore!”

However, even back in the “good old days”, anyone who paid attention already knew that “seasons” in WA had precious little to do with any calendar’s dates, nor with European notions of “four seasons”.

This was already the case long before the coining of terms like “global warming”, “climate change” and “the Anthropocene”.

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Australian bee, Western honey bee: as a Cessna is to a 747

 

Generally, when Australian humans think of bees, they are thinking of Apis mellifera, the so-called “western” – or “European” – honey bee.

When Australian humans venture outdoors, Apis mellifera is the only bee species that most of them ever notice and/or recognise.

Australia has an estimated two thousand native bee species; circa 1,600 of them have been identified.

Around 800 identified species live in Western Australia; many of them live only in some part/s of Western Australia.

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