..and the Sun Orchids, in Perth’s Shenton Bushland.
This post is a fruit of yesterday afternoon’s walk in Shenton Bushland, aka “Shenton Park Bushland”.
if you are partial to Sun Orchids, go there, ASAP; this location – just ten minutes by train from the heart of Perth’s CBD, plus a ten minute stroll from Shenton Park station – has long been one of our favourite walking places.
The current “eruption” of Sun Orchids is the most glorious we have ever seen there.
(to see just how exquisite they are, I suggest you zoom in on/enlarge the featured image)
Thelymitra is a genus of more than 130 species; Southwestern Western Australia is home to a disproportionately large share of them.
True to their common name, Sun Orchids’ flowers open when the sun shines; they close every night, and whenever daytime is mostly-grey.
These are Blue Lady Orchids (Thelymitra crinita), or a close relative/hybrid thereof.
Click here to see and discover much more about about Sun Orchids; clicking any image will lead you to many more images, plus info.
Shenton Bushland’s current Spring also has a typically large number of Donkey Orchids and Cowslip Orchids.
For Spider Orchids, however, 2022 is – to date, at least – an atypically poor year in Shenton Bushland.
The pictured individual was the only one we saw yesterday.
Currently going “gangbusters”, and a delight in their own right, are Shenton’s various grasses.
(alas, also going gangbusters are assorted unwanted invaders. Freesias and Watsonias conspicuously continue to displace more and more of Shenton’s native flora)
