ANPS goes crackers at Dalton

After Bang(o)ing North of Yass last week I thought we should continue the explosive theme by celebrating the date (Guy Fawkes Day, for those fortunate enough not to be of English birth) with a reference to Cracker Night.  We visited some sites off the Dalton- Rye Park Road (but not the Cemetery which has been mown within an inch of its life..

There was no evidence of a burnout, but parts of TSR 30- even quite a long way in - did look a bit like a wreckers yard.  Perhaps the Yass Pastures Protection Board, sorry SE LHPA. double sorry I do of course mean the wonderful SE Local Land Services who now manage the TSRs in our area will clear the rubbish out sometime this interglacial epoch. (Having a gate held closed by something more substantial than a bit of rope could be a start to keeping the bogans out.)
Enough with the negative waves, Moriarty!  If you like Donald Sutherland, follow that link!

OK: as Donald asks for it, here is something righteous and hopeful for a change!

I thought there would be a pyrotechnic display of orchids (as when we last visited visited the Reserve) and there was a massed display of Diuris sulphurea. They were everywhere in swathes.
Several specimens of Microtis parviflora were found.
Then a patch of purple labellum defines Stegostyla cucullata.  We'll get to another purple patch shortly!
Then a sun orchid.  A few folk questioned what the heck a sun orchid was doing opening a flower of an overcast, windy day at about 24oC.  I don't mind, here is Thelymitra juncifolia!

In case you wonder what the definitive "finger-like glands" of this species look like, check the dark lumps on top of the column in the following image!
Several T. pauciflora were also found.

The real fireworks were provided by Cheiranthera linearis.  Not a common species and I noted last week that it is supposed to be associated with gold-bearing rock.  If that is the case buy shares in whatever company has a tenement over this reserve.  They were everywhere in large numbers.
A somewhat straggly plant, but as always with Leptospermum the beauty is in the detail.  L. multicaule.
Ditto for Microseris lanceolata.
Let us have a foray into beans!  Triangular fruits means Daviesia and spiky stuff like that means D genistifolia.
'Lepto' means fine or slight, so finding that Daviesia (note the triangular seed again) leptophylla has slender leaves should be no surprise!
Gompholobium huegelii
This is a Hibbertia , which Ros has nutted out to be H. pedunculata!
This is what it looks like when all the petals have fallen off.  Really strange!
Lomandra filiformis coriacea
Patersonia sericea
Having spilt two cups of coffer, and grazed my his arm somehow, it was a small miracle that Mr Klutz didn't fall into the dam while photographing Triglochin multifructa.
A very interesting flower spike, well worth a dunking if one had turned out to be on the menu!
A pink form of Wahlenbergia stricta
Comesperma sphaerocarpum
We moved from the Reserve to Blakeney Creek North Rd.  The business here was a great display of Brunonia australis.
Again detail = beauty.
Fruiting bodies on lichen!
A mini-grasshopper on a Microseris linearis floret.  Everytime I tried to get a side-on shot the rotten thing changed position and this was the best I could do.
A Melyrid beetle on Velleia paradoxa
A bee (I think) on Wahlenbergia communis.
A cabbage white butterfly (far from cabbages, or any other Brassica).
 Pollanisus apicalis
As I implied at the start, a cracker of a day!

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