ANPS visits Piccadilly Circus

On 26 November I was in the vicinity of Urriara with an English friend noted the words "Piccadilly Circus" on a road sign.  Being quite familiar with Central London he expressed surprise that it was only about 20km from the lower Brindabellas.  I explained that it was a different major intersection.

This image appears to suggest that there was another similarity between the two locations.

There was no evidence of the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, but a spectral form of the statue of Eros seems to have been captured.  As will be evident below this appears to have affected at least some of the local beetles.

We started off walking under a power line with few trees (until they re-grow after pruning) but quite a good array of shrubs,

Off to the side the forest was well endowed with Eucalypts (mainly E pauciflora and a few E delegatensis) and a very thick understorey of Daviesia mimosoides - aka fireweed.

Theer were a number of 'daisies' seen through the day with the first being Olearia erubescens.

Pimelea glauca

Monistria corcinna is also known as Spotted Mountain Grasshoper and met all three parts of its name

I checked the leaves of a patch of Acacia melanoxylon and found quite a lot of insects.  The passions of these two beetles had obviously been inflamed by the presence of the statue.

One of the horde of flies found the shrub a convenient place to pose for a portrait.

Both local violets were present.  Viola hederacea was common amongst the grasses ...

.. while the more solid coloured V. betonicifolia was also found in a few places with the more 'spearhead' shaped leaves being diagnostic.

A bee was busy on Oxylobium ellipticum.

I was confused (situation normal?) by the pinkish colour of this specimen of Poranthera microphylla.

The hollow centre of this Eucalyptus delegatensis  probably explains why it had adopted a horizontal form.  A patch of paint fungus is visible at the head of the hollow.

Clematis aristata was inflower at many locations.

A very tall Stegostyla moschata showing the entire side lobes of the labellum as well as the purple callidown the centre.  The first two images are detal of a plant with several flowers on one stem.

This was found later with only a single quite large flower but I think the shape of the labellum tags it as S. moschata again

We finally found a 'bird orchid'.  THE book calls this Simpliglottis valida: I have no idea what the taxonomists are calling it this week.

Going out on a limb I will call this a beard orchid.  The limited amount of red streaking on the sepal and my not being able to see a ridge between the 'eyes' leads me to call it Calochilus montanus.  The elevation of the site is certainly appropriate.

Getting back to the open country under the powerlines a solitary specimen of Diuris monticola was discovered.

The same area had:

• some specimens of Stackhousia viminea (most of the specimens were more straggly than this); and 

• Epacris breviflora.

After lunch at Bulls Head we set off on a car crawl down Bendora Dam Rd, stopping when the leader saw an interesting looking specimen.  The first such plant was Euphrasia collina.

A roadside bank was well supplied with Tetratheca bauerifolia and in this case growing with Daviesia ulicifolia.

An unusual specimen of a Billardiera.  The internal colour of the 'tube' was unusual  and led to this being considered to be something other than B. scandens

Which duly turned up a little later.

Leptospermum brevipes ...

.. with a bonus pintail beetle.  There are apparently 136 species of these so I am not going to offer anything further than the family Mordellidae.

Prostanthera lasianthos.

Veronica perfoliata and

V. derwentiana.

Near the base of Bendora Rd a Callistemon pallidus was found and photographed.  Apparently the forces of evil have found time in their sorry lives to reclassify Callistemon to Melaleuca - but I don't care - I am sticking with the name that appears to have lasted for 185 years!

This tasteful collection of bottles were alongside the charcoal from a small camp fire under the powerlines.  I wonder to what extent a bottle deposit scheme would prevent such stuff - it certainly wouldn't increase littering (but might make life a little more complicated for pubs and liquor stores so won't happen anytime soon)!