Caladenia latifolia – generally known as “pink fairy orchids”, or simply “pink fairies” – are not endemic to southwest Western Australia.
They also naturally occur in other southern Australian places, including Tasmania.
In my (totally “unscientific”) experience, as someone who has lived on both sides of the Nullarbor, they appear to be much more “common”/easily-seen in southwest WA than anywhere else I have been.
The pictured ones were among more than a few that were flowering in Hollywood Reserve on 01.09.2024.
Although the 2022 fire’s “footprint” is still very evident, Hollywood Reserve is “bouncing back” a deal better/faster than I had anticipated.
A whole lot of local effort – mostly, weeding and planting by volunteer members of Friends of Hollywood Reserve – has played a large role in this…and doubtless saved the City of Nedlands a lot of money.
This makes the City of Nedlands’ recent slashing of relevant funding a particularly egregious example of “bad faith” and “penny-pinching”.
The blather about “trimming fat” and “reducing rate increases” is especially disheartening when one remembers that Nedlands includes some of Australia’s wealthiest postcodes.
Nedlands’ council (“the city of…”) pays lip-service to “conservation”, to “public amenity” and to “tree cover”. but evidently prefers to avoid paying for such things, or properly managing them.
Wealthy, property-owning payers of not-startlingly-high rates continue to reduce Nedlands’ tree cover, unimpeded.
“The city” has buckled under to those who assert “it’s my private property and I can do as I please”, and who resent paying rates for public purposes.
Nedlands’ council is no longer brave enough even to attempt to raise sufficient rate revenue from them.
End of rant.
As it happens, the “local heroes” who really “made” our day in Hollywood Reserve were neither flowering plants, nor volunteering humans.
The afternoon was “grey,” but the overcast sky proved helpful, not disappointing; the next post will show why that was true.
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