Mountain Creek Road weaves its magic again

The ANPS Wednesday walk today was intended to cover the three Travelling Stock Reserves (TSRs) along Mountain Creek Road, which (more or less) parallels the Murrumbidgee to the North-West of Canberra.  We found so much stuff at the furthest TSR (Cavan) that we passed on the middle one (The Mullion TSR) and finished with Tinkers Creek. There are so many photographs I will probably not comment much but let the speak for themselves.

To begin with the plants, giving pride of place to the Orchids.
Pterostylis pedunculata (Maroonhood:  A rather decrepid specimen but they are an early flowering species.
Pterostylis nutans.
Petalochilus carneus - individual and a group.


Petalochilus fuscatus: I am taking this as a different species due to the different shape of the dorsal sepal.


When we visited the area last year on 5 October there were a lot of Diuris around.  This year we only found a few, fairly battered specimens of D. pardina so I didn't spend bandwidth on them.

Here are some other photographs of flowers. 
Stypandra glauca
 Acacia paradoxa: almost the signature plant of Cavan TSR
 Arthopodium minus: a chocolate lily from Tinkers Creek.
 A great clump of Bulbine glauca from Cavan
 An unknown (at this stage) Carex sp from Tinkers Creek (actually in the Creek, not just the TSR!.
Coronidium scorpiodes: a little controversial since the taxonomists have invented this species by lumping two previously separate taxa.  Perhaps this is better left as Helichrysum scorpiodes?

Gynatrix pulchella:  I think this is the female plant.
 Hypoxis hygrometrica:  Golden weather glass.  The taxonomists seem to be having a field day (not that taxonomists ever go into the field) with this.  One authority says it is a member of the Liliaceae  - ie Lilies- while another reckons it is in Hypoxidaceae. I can spell 'lily' so will go with ANBG! 

 Indigofera adesmiifolia: the secret to splitting this one from the more familiar I. australis is the more obviously bipinnate leaves.
The flowers of Lomandra mutiflora
Pomaderis eriocephala
Pultenaea spinosa: one of many peas seen today.
Ranunculus lappaceus: if this was Seasame Street, this lovely buttercup would be sponsored by the letter 'U'!
Linking between plants and animals we have the Fungi.  A few non-photogenic agarics and bracket fungi were seen today but this weird item got a prize.  It also got identified by the nice people at Fungimap as Black Morel (Morchella elata).  We didn't pick it in the field because it is an Ascomycete and thus appears in a different section of the Field Guide.  Apparently it is edible: I would have to be pretty hungry to have a go at one of these.
Starting at the low-rent end of the animal kingdom I managed to photograph some interesting arthropods today.  If time permits I will do a bit more identifying later.



I will finsh with a couple of bird images,  Both are Gang-gangs, a cockatoo and the symbol of the ACT Parks Service (these images were taken at Cavan TSR, in New South Wales).  The first is the typically lairy (also spelt 'comical') looking male and the second the female, showing the attractively coloured breast feathers.


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