Looking back at Spring in Western Australia

Glenda Larke — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 05:15:00 +0000

We are in Summer now. Warm days of endless sun…

As those of you know me well, or who have been reading this blog over the years will realise — I have loved the tropical rainforest. Its grandeur, its wild exuberance, its overstated, overpowering, magnificent fecundity. I’ve tramped and camped in places that appear so wild and lonely you can imagine yourself to be the only human being ever to have come that way (you’d probably be wrong, of course, but that’s the way it feels.)

But one thing it hasn’t got much of, at least not noticeably, are the flowering plants like these (although a single tropical forest tree may have — quite literally — millions of individual blooms…). To find wild flowers in adundance you must come to Australia, specifically Western Australia. No other place has so many varieties in such a small area — an abundance of epidemics that is staggering. And in Spring, well, everywhere you look.

Like the following:

Eucalyptus woody fruits: we used to call then honky or gum nuts

Orchid

Banksia tree with 3 stages of flower/seed

Wax matches

Wattle

Mixed wild flowers in King’s Park

Kangaroo Paws and Leschenualtia

Eggs and Bacon

Orchid

Western Australia –

Looking back at Spring in Western Australia