Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
One of the nigh-infinite pleasures of walking in southwestern Australian forest/woodland/bush:
once “attuned”, you begin to notice that the “forest floor” – when viewed at or near ground level, up close – often looks like a multi-layered, uncommonly-colourful “forest”, in its own right.
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Elythranthera – known as “enamel orchids” – is a petite genus, endemic to Western Australia’s southwest.
It has just two species-proper, plus one “recognised” other form.
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A suitable title for this post’s hero:
The Lonely Spider
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In this episode no flowers are readily visible, but its heroes are flowering plants.
Their genus has circa 700 species and its tallest members are “our” planet’s tallest flowering plants.
Most Eucalyptus species call Australia home, although many now flourish – some of them rather too well – on every other human-inhabited continent.
They dominate most Australian forests and woodlands.
Wandoo woodlands exist only in certain parts of Australia’s southwest.
No matter how well-travelled, persons lucky enough to have experienced wandoo woodland tend to regard it as something unique and highly likeable…notwithstanding the “unhappy” fact that ticks are also partial to it.
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I am almost certain that today’s hero is a fellow member of the genus Patersonia, but not the same species as those in #7 through #9 in this series.
To me, it remains a UFO – an unknown flowering organism.
If you can positively identify it, I’d be glad to be enlightened, and would then update this post.
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This post features this series’ closest views of “purple flags”…with a gnat included, at no extra cost.
Not all “flags” are purple, but the flowers of most members of the Patersonia genus incline to purple. (the exceptions incline to yellow or white)
Patersonia are members of the iris family; most species are endemic to Australia, and the majority are WA-endemic.
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The locale remains the same as #7’s, and this post also co-stars purple flags and WA-endemic (I think) “daisies”.
The focus is closer.
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Most of southwest Western Australia has a very extreme version of a so-called “Mediterranean” climate.
There are huge variations from one year (or sequence of several years) to another.
However, in a “proper” year much more than half of the annual rainfall arrives in June-July-August, when the weather is relatively cool.
In December-January-February it is “normally” very hot, and rain falls hardly at all.
Very few watercourses flow “permanently”; to label more than a few of them as “rivers” is to indulge in flattery…or wishful thinking.
There are, however, many modest, so-called “winter creeks”.
In many years, flowering plants and grasses “get cracking”, to take advantage of the “window” when such a creek is no longer flowing, but its bed is still damp-ish, and the weather is not yet ferociously hot.
The featured image is a “window” into that very “window”.
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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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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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