Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
This post’s six-legged hero is not a Christmas beetle, and the flower which s/he is targeting (and, thereby, probably pollinating) is one of several related “devils”.
These handicaps notwithstanding, “handsome beetle + star-shaped flower head” yields a “Christmassy” image…however accidentally!
Comments closed
Until now, every episode in this series has featured a “local” hero.
In most cases, the relevant flowering plant has been (and will be, in the remaining few episodes) one that naturally occurs only in some particular parts of southwest Western Australia.
Today’s exception is an interloper from the Mediterranean basin.
Comments closed
This post’s photos were all taken on 30 October 2023, when the sun was high in an unclouded West Australian sky.
Each picture looks more-or-less straight down at the harshly-lit ground in so-called “northern Jarrah forest”, circa 60 kilometres southeast of Perth.
Much of this forest/woodland (this bit included) is in reality definitely-not-virgin, mixed forest/woodland, typically co-dominated by jarrah and marri trees, or by wandoo.
Even within a small, walkable area – as is the case here – the apparent “richness” or “poverty” of the forest floor is hugely variable, depending on precisely where one is standing and on what is going on at the particular time, within any particular year.
”Exactly the same place” can appear “utterly unlike itself”, from one time to another.
Comments closed
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.
Comments closed
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.
One Comment
A suitable title for this post’s hero:
The Lonely Spider
Comments closed
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.
Comments closed
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.
Comments closed
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.
Comments closed
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”.
Comments closed
