Saturday, August 2, 2008

Wallum wildflowers 2 – and birds

This week I have been out walking through my favorite patch of wallum again. However, it has taken me three days to actually be able to post about what I found. First I had trouble getting good photos – my usual subjects are birds and their environment – not close-up flowers! Anyway I can say that I have learnt a lot in a couple of days. Then, I could not identify what I had seen so I took out a friend with a lot more experience in identifying wallum plants than me. The first flower is a Slender Sun Orchid (Thelymitra pauciflora) and apparently quite rare for around here. It is growing down in a damp swampy area of the wallum.

The other flower was up on a ridge growing on a rocky piece of ground where hardly anything else was growing. My friend had never seen this flower before, although we eventually found it described in a book about the vegetation of the Noosa area. It is a Small Waxlip Orchid (Glossodia minor).

Please feel free to correct any mistakes I have made in ID of plants.

The first afternoon I was walking through the bush I could hear lots of Rainbow Lorikeets and Noisy Friarbirds. This usually means there is a good honey source but it took me a while to discover that they were apparently getting nectar from the flower stems of the Xanthorrhoea. There are both species of Xanthorrhoea – fulva and johnsonii - in close proximity in this area. There was one patch of bush where every flower stalk had a bird swinging on the stems and busily getting nectar.

Rainbow Lorikeets up, around, and down on the flower stalks of Xanthorrhoea.


6 comments:

  1. Some great finds - love that first shot of the Lorikeet on the Xanthorrhoea.

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  2. Thanks Mosura. I have lorikeets in my garden all the time and I enjoy watching their antics.

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  3. You have done an excellent job capturing the beautiful ground orchids. I am always most interested to know what orchids are flowering in other parts of Australia. Thank you.

    Cheers
    Gaye

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  4. Hi Mick
    This blog is evidence of a person who believes that education is a life-time process. A true naturalist is a curious person, a person curious about the world. Keep up the good work. I'm glad you're sharing the journey with us.
    Boobook

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  5. Hi Mick
    Nice Orchids.
    Gosh your area is so far ahead of us down south. Sun Orchids will not flower here till Mid-November, can you believe it?
    A Victorian Orchid friend of mine found a different Glossodia in flower last week, near Barrington Tops (in the Hunter region of NSW).
    <
    You are definitely right with the Glossodia minor.
    Thelymitras are very difficult, and I cannot confirm for sure your T. pauciflora ID. You are certainly close, but there has been a lot of "splitting" going on, and that makes it hard for we amateurs.
    <
    The shape of the "column structure", especially the yellow bit at the top of the column (some are horse-shoe shaped, some open, some are black or pink, there, instead. Also the white tufts ("Column arms") all differ. You need Macro shots of the centre of the flower, to tell for sure.
    <
    Instead, lets just enjoy the beauty of these wonderful flowers.
    Cheers
    Denis

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  6. Thanks Gaye, Boobook, and Denis. Especially nice to have more knowledgeable people help me with ID and encouragement too. I am constantly curious about things I don't know and there is so much around me to learn. It would be pretty boring to NOT be learning something. Denis thanks for help with the names. The Thelymitra is certainly more difficult than I had realized. The book I am using which is one done by a local person only lists the one kind that I have named but I have no idea if there are more than that up here in the local area. The book is "Noosa's Native Plants" by Stephanie Haslam. Anyway, it was all the interesting posts by others with the fascinating little ground orchids that made me really have a good look around this last week. So thanks to all!

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