ANPS outing to Barracks Creek

The ANPS Canberra Branch Wednesday Walkers took themselves to Barracks Creek on the Southern edge of Karabar ( a suburb of Queanbeyan) on 13 April 2011.

One of the sights I photographed includes a giant killer spider (I leave it to the reader how to hyphenate that phrase) with a wrecked car in the gully behind.  Note: this is Queanbeyan!
This being the walk of a plant society I will put a few images of flowering plants at the beginning. For some reason I always put monocots first so here is a plume grass Dichelachne micrantha.  It was growing amongst some Stypandra and the leaves looked identical thereto.
I always have to remind myself that orchids are monocots.   Today's species was Diplodium truncatum, the Little Dumpy.  Although of the shape of the Greenhoods these are obviously brown!


Next we have the dicots: Acacia genistifolia, Goodenia hederacea, Coronidium oxylepis ssp. lanatum  (which apparently used to be Helichrysum collinum until some taxonomist needed a PhD topic or an extra published paper) and Styphelia triflora. I have shown an image of the last previously but they are pretty.
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We now move out of flowering plants.  First stop in lichen: the first image showing a few fruiting bodies.
Next we have a few more fruiting bodies with some tendrils of Necklace fern Asplenium flabellifolium creeping through.  The spiky stuff is thought to be a moss, which is a level of detail where I am quite happy to leave things.
My final lichen shot shows some drier lichen hanging off some Pomaderris eriocephala - there has to be some use for Pomaderris!.
The Fungi are now rated as a Kingdom of their own, between Plants and Animals.  This apparently reflects fungi using chitin rather than cellulose as a strengthening molecule in their cell walls.  Here are some images from the day, beginning with Gymnophila junonius (a Fungimap target species).  Note the gills visible in the mirror.
Somewhat similar in appearance (until one notices the absence of gills - hopefully visible in the mirror) is Phlebopus marginatus (also a Fungimap target species).  I have seen these up to 50cm across the cap!
The final fungal feature is a Jelly fungus, Calocera sp.
In terms of Animals I offer three ants.  Roger kindly identified the first as a Jumping Ant (Myrmecia - there are 90 species in the genus).  The other two are included to indicated the range of styles available in the anteater's menu.  They were much smaller.
Birds were relatively few and far between, with only 18 species written down.  This probably reflects the relatively strong wind.

Comments

Denis Wilson said…
Love the "Little Dumpies".
One of my Orchid hunting colleagues refers to plants like your Pomaderris as "habitat".
A nice phrase which indicates his disdain for them.
Cheers
Denis
13 April 2011 at 17:31:00 GMT+10
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