Spring has officially sprung in the Southern Hemisphere and the flora and fauna are definitely doing their thing. We have been in drought for most of the year, only to see it broken with nearly deluge levels of rain in the last two months.
The native plants on our property are making use of the bonanza by putting out copious amounts of flowers. So far we’ve identified fourteen species of native orchids, and from the looks of it we’re going to have more of them this year than ever before. Here are some of the things we saw on this morning’s walk through our woods.
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Great shots particularly on this one. If they eat houseflies I could make use of a few of these plants. It’s fall here, so they’re all all trying to sneak inside to escape winter.
They’d have to be pretty small house flies (we get great big blow flies [“blowies”] as our “house” flies). That whole plant is about three inches tall. Here’s one from last year with my hand for scale.
Sundews do come in bigger varieties. And even the pale ones can get up to about eight inches, if you include the flower stalk. Of course some sundews are so small the whole plant is smaller than a quarter. Like these:
These are lovely! I don’t know which is prettier, the photo or the name.
Oh, I forgot to mention – it’s a leafless twining vine, so the only “foliage” is the flowers. The plant it is climbing is called Sagg – which is a sharp-bladed bunch grass.
We’ve heard these for years, but we’ve never been able to actually identify one by sight (we’ve had fleeting views but no sighting clear enough to be sure of what we saw).
Turns out they are nesting in this tree hollow.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit washed out in this image.