The orchid hunting continues as I travel east along the southern region of the state though heading into the area around Fitzgerald River national park, it’s hard not to photograph the stunning array of other plants.
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The lazy spider orchid or Caladenia multiclavia, perhaps my favourite of all the orchids I’ve seen so far. I’m not sure why they call it lazy, I guess because of it’s reclined pose. I found lots of these in the area from Jerramungup through to Ravensthorpe, almost anywhere that there was some tree cover especially sheoaks was worth a look.
These king-in-a-carriage orchids reminded me of a pair of dancing Brolgas. Ok bird experts, perhaps not brolgas, though the photo certainly has an “Awwww” feel about it. This post is a pictorial of hammer and duck orchids, some were found in the Stirling Ranges while most came from a secret little location south of Mount Barker.
Yes this is a strange looking thing, exactly the same orchid as the previous posts first picture, a crab lipped spider orchid but with a genetic defect called hyperchromic or lutea, where the genes for colour are turned off and the only things showing are whites, greens and yellow. Essentially what we might call an albino. I’d found some magnificent spider orchids that had the same genetic condition, very impressive specimens and I kept going back to them over and over.
What sort of crazy alien thing is this? It’s a crab lipped spider orchid (Caladenia plicata), truly one of the weirdest flower I’ve seen in a long time. This year is shaping up to be a fantastic season for orchids and I’ve already done a trip out and around Albany and up to the Stirling Ranges where I’ve found lots of orchid variety including one of the most prized finds for orchid hunters….
You may be wondering what this is, it’s a flying duck orchid of the Paracaleana genus of orchids which rely on mimicking wasp species for fertilization. The big warty “head” of this duck orchid looks like the female of a wasp species, an unsuspecting male wasp flies down and tries to literally pick up what he believes to be a female, the warty head flicks around swinging him under to the business part of the flower, to pollinate it or collect pollen to spread to the next flower he tries to “pick up”.
I’ve been tumbling rocks constantly for the last few months since I bought the tumbling kit. After years of collecting rocks while travelling around the country, it’s great to finally be able to see some of them at their best, polished and shining. These ones above were from Tassie along the north coast where there are a couple of fossicking areas, I believe most of them are jasper, though there’s some agate in there and petrified wood as well.
Taking photographs is one of the ways to keep myself amused while the lock down is still on, although it’s slowly letting up with W.A. opening some of it’s internal travel restrictions. Just outside of the cottage where I’m staying there’s a birdbath that’s proving to be a great joy with a wide variety of birds visiting it through the day.
