The House(s) of Fran_mart

... into Fox's Elbow (unlike the road sign makers who use - inter alia - Foxes Elbow or Foxe's Elbow).  Enough with the Latin: there are too many photographs of lovely things. After this image of the basic habitat I'll begin with the orchids as I am sure the orchid experts will want to get stuck right in to the Diuris mystery starting at the second image down. Diuris sulphurea. This is the mystery and I have shown three images of it in the hope this will enable someone to say what it is.  Hopefully without use of the cheaty word 'aff'.  The overall colour was like D sulphurea but it was much smaller than all the other examples of that species and it didn't have the brown spots. This one was right at the end and referring to David Jones' big boo k I have concluded it is D. pedunculata , the Small Snake Orchid.  The location today was not far from Braidwood specifically mentioned as part of the range.   Thelymitra pauciflora ...

I hope readers will excuse yet another foray into exotic plants.  I thought the display of Rhodedendrons in Commonwealth Park today worthy of blogging. I'll note that I had gone there looking for fruit bats, which while not really native to the area seem to have spread here under their own steam.  They were not around, probably being driven away by the long cold Winter. With no more ado here are my photos of the pretty flowers.  The display starts just behind the statue.  I have no idea why the choughs were running away from the plants. What a pity they are not in flower during Floriade!  But as a 'local' all I can say, emulating the Sergeant in It Aint half hot Mum   is "Oh dear, what a pity.  Never mind!"

The action in the natural history department kicked off this morning with the small dog displaying much interest in the Southern side of a Joycea pallida tussock.  This was undoubtedly due to the Shingleback lurking on the Northern side of the tussock.  Fortunately the two animals were kept apart. I then toddled off for a run on Whiskers Creek Rd.  (My adviser reckons I need some spreed work over the next month.)  As I got down to the Creek I was aware that the thornbills were rather excited.   This reflected the visible presence of a large Red-bellied Black Snake on the edge of our drive.  Proving that I need the speed work, by the time I had rumbled back to the house and returned with my camera Joe Blake had shot through. My next foray was to the Plain to check out the situation on the swamp.  This was essentially excellent as shown in the last few updating entries in my prior post . As I returned over the creek I noticed that there were no ...

The Diuris semilunulata towards the top of the block are now blooming well. I marked a spot where some Microtis sp leaves were seen.  Today, 25 October some well developed buds were seen on them.  Despite the howling gale that was going on, I managed to get an image of them.  Now all we have to do is to wait for the flowers to develop and then try to identify the species. Eventually (30 October) a couple of florets opened looking like this. An orchid expert has confirmed this to be Microtis parviflora . Quite a few sun-orchids have opened today.  I believe that they are Thelymitra peniculata since they look a bit fatter in the petals than those I called T. pauciflora yesterday! We now get towards a question.  On 24/10 in the woodland at Dalton the sun-orchids were all wide open when we left just before 1500 hours.  On 25/10, as is usual in this area, they were all shutting up shop by 1345 and were more or less completely closed by 1...

The orchids seen on today's trip were stunning.  It is the first time I can ever remember passing on photographing Thelymitra (Sun orchids) because there were so many of them.  I hope any orchid experts reading this offer any corrections they see as necessary. To begin in the cemetery.  Amidst the death (OK you expect that in a cemetery) and destruction there were 3 species of orchids. Here are: Oligochaetochilus aciculiformis Stegostyla cuccullata I didn't see the donkey orchid here, but Roger Farrow did and has provided (thanks Roger) this image of Diuris semilunulata . Once out on the roads the first orchids was soon found.  The flowers are small and the base of the leaf and stem were reddish so I call it Thelymitra pauciflora . Bees also find them interesting! I am not sure the 'pinkness' of this flower comes out in the images.  On the roadside this was very obvious.  The colour of the column led me to believe it was Thel...