Botanical reflections on "poetry"
In the days of my youth I played Coarse Rugby in England. A consequence of this was that I was occasionally forced to visit establishments which engaged in commerce, with particular reference to beer.
As one of my team-mates (actually the vicar's son) said "You don't buy beer, you just rent it." When visiting the return location (which in the case of a Watney House was possibly directly plumbed to the spigots) one was often regaled with witty ditties, many of which have been collected by the English broadcaster Nigel Rees. One that has stuck in my mind was
That reminiscence has been generated by a visit to the Glossodia site on our block today. After looking at about 50 leaves I finally got my reward. Two of the leaves in one area were accompanied by buds!
To rephrase the admonitory doggerel above:
Going to another site, quite close to the Glossodias I found some Microtis leaves.
At least one can justify excitement about Glossodia with the flowers being very attractive. With Microtis - which as far as I understand is one of the few genera not even taxonomists have tried to merge into Caladenia (Saguaro are probably under threat) - the flowers are minute and pale green.
The area behind the Glossodia patch is rather heathy, on a particularly stony ridge. To my great pleasure and surprise some of the Leucopogon fletcheri was in nice flower.
Nearby one of the most pathetic of the local wattles, Acacia gunnii was still in flower. It is usually one of the first to come into blossom: perhaps when you are only 30cm high and sparsely flowered you start early to try to get a heads start on the big boys?
In the matter of "quite unexciting" Luzula densiflora could be considered a contender if looked at from a distance. However i think getting a close up takes it into the "interestingly complex" category.
There were quite a lot of meat ants charging about on secret ant business. Pleasingly they kept away from me. When I got back home I found that a Chrysomelid Leaf Beetle had hitched a ride. As they don't bite me I carefully put it out in the garden to do its thing.
On the return visit I found a couple of buds of Microseris lanceolata (Yam Daisy).
As one of my team-mates (actually the vicar's son) said "You don't buy beer, you just rent it." When visiting the return location (which in the case of a Watney House was possibly directly plumbed to the spigots) one was often regaled with witty ditties, many of which have been collected by the English broadcaster Nigel Rees. One that has stuck in my mind was
"A poets ambition must be small,(or words to that effect).
to write his verse on an outhouse wall"
That reminiscence has been generated by a visit to the Glossodia site on our block today. After looking at about 50 leaves I finally got my reward. Two of the leaves in one area were accompanied by buds!
A botanists life must be blightedMy guess is that it will be another week at least before this proves it isn't a Caladenia. I revisited the site 3 days later and found another 3 buds of this species WHICH ISN'T A CALADENIA!
If stuff like that gets them excited!
The area behind the Glossodia patch is rather heathy, on a particularly stony ridge. To my great pleasure and surprise some of the Leucopogon fletcheri was in nice flower.
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