In Flower This Week

18 July 2003

With this foggy bracing weather many flowers are in bud while others such as banksias, grevilleas and wattles are already blooming.  Along Banks Walk, Banksia ‘Birthday Candles’ [Section 174] is a dense dwarf shrub lit with upright golden cylindrical flowers.  Woollsia pungens [Section 174] also resembles candles for its upright branches are dense with small white flowers.

Grevillea ‘Poorinda Queen’ [Section 124] has attractive apricot coloured spider flowers on the spreading shrub, while Grevillea ‘Scarlet Sprite’ [Section 119] is a dense rounded shrub brightened with its scarlet flowers.  Thryptomene saxicola ‘Pink Lace’ [Section 10], under the limbs of the large Eucalyptus mannifera tree, is a small spreading plant well covered with tiny pink flowers. Q’ld Silver Wattle, Acacia podalyriifolia [Section 119] displays its clusters of fluffy yellow flower balls among its grey-green foliage.

Walking through the Rock Garden, always a source of colourful flowers, we see a Grevillea baueri-lanigera intermediate [Section 15C] with pink spider flowers covering the prostrate plant which creeps over the rocks.  Eremophila sargentii [Section 15E] is a small shrub with pale mauve trumped flowers along its upright stems.  At the top of the stairs, Grevillea ‘Mason’s Hybrid’ [Section 15H] is a large, long-flowering shrub bearing terminal orange-red floral sprays.  Opposite, a bearded heath, Leucopogon melaleucoides [Section 15A] is a very small shrub covered in profusion with tiny hairy tubular white flowers.  Crossing the road, Acacia conferta [Section 3] is an open shrub with a scattering of yellow flower balls.

Banksia spinulosa var. collina - click for larger image

Up the zig-zag path to the covered shelter, Banksia spinulosa var. collina [Section 37] bears yellow flower spikes, and Banksia plagiocarpa [Section 37] has dark grey-blue flowers on an upright shrub.  Beside, Grevillea dielsiana [Section 37] is a picture to see for this open medium size shrub dangles its many orange-red flowers, like Christmas lights, from its branches with fine divided foliage.  Grevillea stenomera [Section 37] is a large spreading shrub bearing mostly solitary deep pink flowers. Edging the upper path, Grevillea victoriae [Section 37] is a large old shrub with pendent rust coloured flowers. 

Almost opposite, Cryptandra amara subsp. floribunda [Section 38] is a dwarf shrub with small white flowers covering the long arching lateral branches.  Edging the path and around the corner Grevillea thelemanniana subsp. indet [Section 37] is small spreading shrub with conspicuous salmon coloured flowers pendent in the soft grey-green foliage. In the garden at the next small path edging the lawn is Banksia sp. [Section 37], low, dense and spreading with almost black styles on gold flower spikes – quite impressive.  Nearby the Possum Banksia, Banksia baueri [Section 37] is a small shrub bearing lovely almost rounded woolly grey flower spikes.

This cold morning the magpies are chortling to anyone while the kookaburras laugh about everything.  Returning, Hakea cristata [Section 24] is another picture with globular clusters of white flowers attached to the many lateral branches of this open shrub.

Such wonderful flowers we have !                                                                    Barbara Daly