Mainly Shipwreck Creek

Some orchid loving (and expert) friends from Canberra have visited us.  There were three species that they wanted to see in particular:

1. Pterostylis concinna (they'd not seen it);
2. Pterostylis curta (they needed photographs of the whole plant in habitat)
3. Glossodia minor (very hard to find in the Southern Tablelands - and I don't care if the mysteries of DNA sequencing have led some some misguided souls to call it a Caladenia).

We found a single miserable specimen of P. coninna on the Betka River Loop on their first evening with us, so point 1 was achieved.  I think the flowering period for that species is close to finished so we were lucky with that.

For point 2 the best colonies I am aware of were on some dunes near the Betka River estuary marked with an X below.

So we took ourselves off there on the morning of 5 September.  The orchids delivered on point 2!

A close-up: note the twist on the labellum.

Our friends then noted some finger orchids nearby.  These were identified as Caladenia latifolia.  A new species for our Mallacoota list.

We then moved on to Karbeethong Rd to check out the Caladenias there to see if there was anything other than C. catenata.  This small pink jobbie was spotted, but so far has resisted identification.  The word "hybrid" has been uttered, but followed with "with what?"

I sought advice from one of the authors of "Orchids of East Gippsland" and he has kindly advised that he agrees with 'hybrid' and suggest it is between C. catenata and C, fuscata.  Now all we have to do is find the parent C. fuscata!

To deal with objective 3 we took ourselves to Shipwreck Creek where I had once recorded Glossodia minor in the heath towards Seal Creek.  The road from the Airport to the Park boundary was in average (but close to ordinary) quality.  Potholes-R-Us had done a delivery.  Once past the boundary there were less holes but many more examples of wind-bonsai.

We simply followed the tracks of others and drove round.

On arrival at the campground our aim was to do the loop towards Seal Creek and back along Betka Rd.  Here is where we went.

Almost as soon as we left the beach we found a couple of specimens of Glossodia minor.

This snap was a specimen seen a few hundred m further along the track, but does show the detail quite well.

This was the biggest colony we found.  I have put red circles around 11 G. minor in the image.  You probably need to click the image to see them clearly!

Several specimens of Bossiaea ensata were seen.  The Flora of Victoria lists this as "rare" - it didn't seen to be rare yesterday!

I hope this gives an idea of the whole plant.

There were a lot of Patersonia around.  Going on the text in "Wildflowers of the Wilderness Coast", as this had flowers well above the foliage I am going for P. occidentalis.

A white flower that I identified at the time but can't relocate in the book!  That was because the book shows the pink form of Euphrasia collina!

Glossodia major was also present.

This is definitely a bean but I am not sure which!

Back to orchids.  I think this is Diuris pardina (unless the taxonomists have renamed it while I was ignoring them).

I have taken a guess at Platylobium parviflorum for this.

A beetle was creeping along Betka Rd.  It seemed unable to fly, which I attributed to it being not long out of its pupal case.

After a pleasant lunch at the picnic table we headed homewards - with the 'wards' coming into play at the track into Pebbly Beach.

The obvious name of the game continued to be Caladenia catenata, both in pink  ...

.. and white.

I thought this flower was very attractive.  Particularly so when it turned out to be Pomaderris intermedia.

This sample of Pultenaea daphnoides was particularly good.

We took a brief stop at Quarry Beach to show our friends the rocks and then home.