Yanununbeyan Flowers

Today I went for a trip to Yanununbeyan (aka the place no-one can pronounce, let alone spell) State Conservation Area and National Park. I'm bewildered why they have the two different segments, especially as the SCA is more mucked about with than the NP.  Whatever, there were magnificent flower there.

The most gripping were the Tetratheca bauerifolia. In places these were in swathes: the next three images show from a single flower to a patch to a big patch.  The most spectacular patches were along Spring Creek Trail.

I thought the other spectacular spread was  Leucopogon attenuatus (taking a big punt there: the flowers don't point down so not L. fletcheri  and the plant is too high to be L, virgatus).  However a far more knowledgeable reader has suggested L. attenuatus flowers much earlier so that it is in fact L virgatus, which it looks like and is growing tall because it is under trees.  In places the hillsides were silver.  Obviously this stirred the romantic impulses in the local insects (suggested to be members of the family Lauxanidae).


Along Spring Creek Trail there was a good selection of Grevillea lanigera.

Although I searched a fair bit, I was becoming concerned that there were no orchids around.  Then I found a Stegostyla sp - I initially thought S. moschata as the scent was pretty much 'hippy shop' but it has been suggested the very obvious (well, it is obvious when you know what to look for) comb on the labellum makes it S. ustulata.  The over-curving dorsal sepal was very easy to spot to differentiate this from the Petalochilus seen earlier in the week.


In addition to these there were good displays of Craspedia, Brachyscome and various Acacias.

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