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Wildflowers of Australia
These flowers were photographed from far and wide, from the Indian Ocean to the Tasman Sea (including several from our humble backyard). |
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Wildflowers of Australia
These flowers were photographed from far and wide, from the Indian Ocean to the Tasman Sea (including several from our humble backyard). |
One of Australia’s spectacular flower oddities; it grows wild in western Australia. It’s not very frost tolerant, or I’d grow one here.
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You gotta send me a cutting of that. I’ll be the envy of all the neighbors. Everyone here has the red or yellow version. That’s it. I’m totally buying a house this weekend and you’re sending me a cutting. That’s the PLAN.
There’s just the teensy, weensy issue of getting it through US quarantine.
I’m also not sure that it will propagate from cuttings, but it will grow from seed. I can see if there are any nurseries here licenced to send seeds to the US.
Oh, it also comes in an all green version.
Those would look great surrounded by silver plants. I should be working, but I’m going to do some research to see if they even sell that kind in the US.
I just found a company in Santa Barbara that sells them 3 of my top 5 fave local nurseries! Yay me!
And I found a distributor in San Marcos. Looks like you are set to become the envy of the neighborhood.
They’re actually in Santa Barbara, but on San Marcos Rd. I also notice that the nursery I’m visiting tomorrow is on the list. I hope they have some in stock.
Clockwise from the upper left: Musk Orchid, Pink Fingers Orchid, Waxlip Orchid, and Black-striped Greenhood Orchid.
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This is not a macro shot; this eucalyptus tree produces gum-nut flower pods as big as my fist. The tree itself is relatively small.
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Ain’t evolution weird and wonderful?
Thanks for the wonderful photo diaries, keres. I don’t think I have ever seen a real live E. macrocarpa in flower – only photos. Where did you photograph it?
This one was at the botanical garden in King’s Park, in Perth. A must see if you go to Perth; the view of the Swan river and surrounds alone are worth the walk.
Ah, yes. I’ve never had the time in Perth to explore King’s Park.
Great shot of an amazing flower — as are all these shots and those of the birds. You must have gotten really fat from gorging on such a splendid feast of flora and fauna.
Amazing. Looks like some sort of scrumptious desert!
Another amazing shot among many amazing shots. I love the sequence of the flowers’ development in the shot.
It was that sequence that drew me to this framing. I actually have several shots of these three flower pods – just to give myself a insurance.
This reminds me of something out of sci-fi art. Moebius, maybe. Wonderful!
I picked up that resonance as well.
The old saying, “Truth is stranger than fiction” surely applies here! A cartoonist couldn’t dream up anything more unlikely. Awesome!
In the small version of this photo, I thought I was looking at a sequence of the same flower taken over time. Just gorgeous – can they have a scent other than eucalyptus?
These flowers close every afternoon at about four o’clock, hence the name.
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I love these. I wonder if it would be possible to grown these 4o’clocks side by side with the U.S. 4 O’clocks? My limelights are about the same color – though really different in blossum, of course.
Like a lot of Australian flowers they naturally occur in many shades and colors.
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A whole field! 🙂
Not a flower, but a lovely seed head. These rushes grow in abundance on our grey water evaporation field. Their seeds are similar in size to mustard seeds, which makes that one very small spider.
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I am NOT going to enlarge this because of the arachnid. But these do remind me of the purple millet we had last year, that the little chickadees loved over the winter. I’m guessing these rushes are also attractive to small birds.
When we applied for “Land for Wildlife” status for our property we were very proud of its diversity of trees and flowers. The two evaluators went gaga over our grasses.
Because europeans were pastoralist, they took over all the open grasslands first. Native grasses were then plowed under to grow european varieties of grass and grains to feed sheep or make bread and beer. Remnant native pastures are rare, and highly valued as conservation sites.
And yes, the native birds flock to our place for the seed heads still available here.
Congratulations on your Land for Wildlife status. That’s wonderful of you to do to dedicate your land to being a preserve. Looks like you live in a dreamland.
A fitting name for this western Australian shrub.
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What’s the size of these?
Related to cotton?
Here are the specifics in a Western Australia Flora data base.
How extraordinary! I love the black stamens (?) against the white fluffy….what? petals? seedheads?
This insectivorous plant favors the same shady slope as our orchids, but get extra nitrogen from “eating” insects – like the fly this plant has in one of its sticky specially adapted leaves.
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Very interesting. We have sundews here too and they do the same job apparently.
West Australia’s state flower emblem, and a shocking bit of bright color in the western deserts.
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This is one gaudy flower! Bluebonnets and Indian blanket in Texas look pale and washed out compared to these scorchers.
The shape of the blossom reminds me of columbines. The color is over the top.
These flowers are still at the bud stage.
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OK, now, confess: This is really a kid’s pipecleaner project, right?
Two diaries?? And great ones?? How are lowly newbies like some of us supposed to look beside these?
I think I’ll just scan in the photos I took at Girl Scout Camp in the wayback. . .
And how could anyone compete with your Girl Scout camp photos? The nostalga factor alone would put them in a league of their own.
Oh, right. Along with the out-of-focus shots; the really swift clothes and standard issue bathing suits; and the swank digs. Nothing more interesting, sure.
And the wild pigs rooting through your tentmates backpack searching for chocolate.
I had that happen once. Not wild boars rooting about the tent, just the fire ring where we left the pots and pans. It was like a drunken Anvil Chorus – a 3am. At least it wasn’t the bison we had to get around earlier in the day on our way to the campsite. I doubt we could have cooked the next day with pots “cleaned out” by a bison.
It wasn’t much fun sleeping in a tent that the semi-feral pigs rooted through every day, either (they weren’t wild, just turned out in the woods to feed for most of the summer – a longtime practice in parts of the Ozarks). We weren’t supposed to have food around unless it was suspended in the air out of reach of most critters, but one of our tentmates couldn’t do without her chocolate. We were ready to suspend her in the air by the end of the month!
Keres, these are wonderful photos. I especially like seeing the texture of the flowers and their parts up so close. Seems like so many have little hair-like parts that are missed in a quick walk-by. The pics make me want to do more in our garden (and more study in the botany books upstairs).
Is a Landscapes of Australia in the works? Or Mammals and Marsupials?
Very prescient. Australian “Landscapes” and “Critters” are in production as we type.
I’ll look for them when I wake up.
A lovely and unusual collection, Keres. Thanks for sharing your corner of the world with us.