Its everywhere

When we first moved down to Mallacoota we were almost wondering what had happened to the flowers that we had previously noted.  Just recently it has seemed that everywhere we go there are copious, and interesting blossoms!

The first few images are from a walk through the forest to Pebbly Beach.  Idon't normally photo rushes etc but this looked interesting.  I think it is a species of Lomandra after the floral parts have dropped off.

Many finger orchids (Caladenia sp) in a range of colours all over the forest floor.

Acacia verticillata is still in flower

Coming up from the beach we found a group of Pterostylis nutans nodding away

A single P. pedunculata.

Te most excitement of the day was finding this Green-comb Spider Orchid between the beach and the footbridge.  Its scientific name is Caladenia tentaculata: ie the same genus as the finger orchids!  How that linkage is made is bewildering, suggesting that dosage needs to be adjusted for a few taxonomists!

A close-up of the combs.

Another pretty Pomaderris.

On the way back to Betka we paused briefly to view a sea of Patersonia in the slashed heath around the BoM site and air navigation towers.  The paddock was essentially purple.  However when one of the group went back the next day all the flowers had gone.  That observer marveled at how the plants had coordinated their flowering to one day!  Assuming that the plants are fertilised by insects  - and I can't see why such lurid flowers would be developed for wind pollination - the local insects also got themselves organised rather well!

These are the images from the Gun Club Heath.  which we visited on the 26th.  We saw quite a few 'normal' Diuris orientis.

We also found these strange looking all yellow orchids.  They were definitely not D. chryseopsis (Golden Moth orchid) and turned out to be an unusual yellow form of D. orientis.

The astonishing sight here was a huge number of Glossodia major (Waxlip orchid). 

They were in profusion on both sides of the airport fence, in approximately the area outlined in red (possibly a wider area as we didn't explore everywhere).

Google Earth tells me this is ~11 hectares or 110,000 square metres.  I had guessed at one orchid per square metre giving 110,000 plants which seems unbelievable.  However at a minimum there were many thousands of these orchids present.  This just shows what can happen when vegetation is opened up!

We also found a few spider orchids: again C. tentaculata.

Over by the Gun Club fence we also found some sun orchid buds.  This one was more red than it appears here and was either Thelymitra rubra or T. carnea.  The dry habitat suggests T. rubra but a later visit is needed to confirm this.

We also explored the bush, trying to find a track down to the River.  We failed on that, but did find this very large bracket fungus, knocked off a tree which had become horizontal.