Taste of Spring (West Australian & Norwegian)

According to the people who were already here for many thousands of years before “European settlement”, southwest Western Australia has six seasons.

Each is determined by what is actually happening, rather than by a calendar’s fixed dates.

Currently, in and around Perth, it is very evidently Djilba – the first of two “Spring” seasons.

Pictured above and below is a parrot bush – one of many currently blooming in Perth’s Shenton Park Bushland.

 

 

Click here to discover the six seasons, and click this to learn about the parrot bush.

To those who accept the reclassification of Dryandras as a subset of Banksias, this species’ “scientific/Latin” name is Banksia sessilis.

To those who still insist that Dryandras are a distinct genus, this species is Dryandra sessilis.

 

 

 

As of Monday this week, spider orchids and jug orchids were yet to flower, but many donkey orchids, quite a few cowslips, and some other orchid species were already evident, as were lots of wattles, Swan River myrtles…and almost every plant – flowering or not – looked very healthy.

Within a week or so, the annual “eruption” will likely be in full swing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to “the virus”, for the foreseeable future no Norwegian-resident saxophonist will be able to draw inspiration from Western Australia’s flora, in situ.

That said, one Norwegian virtuoso did provide an apt musical complement,  whilst “isolated and alone” in his home city of Oslo in January this year.

On A New Dawn Marius Neset’s tenor saxophone “sings” nine original compositions, unaccompanied.

This is his Taste of Spring: