In Flower This Week

This walk is along the Main Path commencing at the far end of the café building.  Because of the high temperatures, some plants may be dehydrated.  Regardless there are many flowers to see.

The bed of daisies is yellow with the straw daisies, Bracteantha bracteata forms [Section 303]. A kangaroo paw, Anigozanthos flavidus [Section 303] has long upright stems with matt green flowers while, above the grasses another Anigozanthos flavidus [Section 7] with yellow and red ‘paw’ flowers are quite colourful.  Banksia burdettii [Section 30], still a young plant, has acorn shaped flower spikes of bright orange from the base as the flowers open.  (There is a flock of chattering and colourful honeyeaters here just now, with a bird on top of each flower).  Banksia baxteri [Section 30] is another young plant, the leaves of different shapes and with young green flower spikes.

Continue through the sections of grevilleas, with only a few flowers and crossing the road where Crowea exalata [Section 112] is a neat rounded shrub well covered with its bright pink star flowers and opposite, Philotheca difformis subsp. smithiana [Section 112], of similar size, is showered with small white star flowers.

The path then wanders through the flora of the Sydney Region.  Podolobium aciculiferum [Section 191H] is a medium prickly shrub with yellow pea-shaped flowers. Scaevola ramosissima var. ramosissima [Section 191H], seen edging the path, is prostrate with mauve fan flowers adorning the trailing stems. Grevillea rhyolitica subsp. rhyolitica [Section 191S] has red clusters of flowers, pendent from the branches and Prostanthera porcata [Section 191S] blends its cream bugle-shaped flowers amid its leaves.  Opposite the look-out where rosellas are heard splashing in the stream below, is a fringe lily, Thysanotos juncifolius [Section 191P] with grass-like foliage and purple fringed, three-petalled flowers, and Dampiera stricta [Section 191P], a suckering plant with upright stems of blue flowers. Around the curve the spreading Teucrium argutum [Section 191S] is an invasive ground-cover with upright stems of pink heads, and Hibbertia pedunculata [Section 191S] is a dense ground cover bright with yellow flowers.  A corner of Platysace lanceolata [Section 191E] shrubs display their heads of small white flowers which cover the compact shrubs. At the exit to this area is a patch of Isotoma axillaris [Section 191L] with large blue star flowers, and opposite a wattle, Acacia longissima [Section 191L] displaying its rods of cream flowers amid its fine foliage on a small open tree.

Cross the pleasant Eucalypt Lawn to the Rock Garden. Lechenaultia biloba [Section 15N] has powder blue flowers, Halgania cyanea [Section 15N] has deep blue flowers, Diplopeltis huegelii subsp. subintegra [Section 15N] has open pink flowers.  In front of the waterfall is Eucalyptus extrica [Section 15V], small and misshapen and covered with fluffy white flowers. And so through to the Rainforest, so cool so green …

Always other flowers to enjoy …                                                   Barbara Daly.