Orchid season 2021

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….

Queen of sheba

The Queen of Sheba orchid is the holy grail of orchids for those who hunt for orchids and I was lucky enough to find some near Albany.

Another queen

There’s a great variety of colour in a Queen of sheba orchid and I managed to find a few of them but when I went back the following day they were all closed up so I couldn’t get any more photos. Still, I should get back to the crab lipped spider.

Crablip

These are just lovely from any angle, and especially when zoomed in, now there’s a face only a mother could love, or I guess the right insect.

Hmm.

Now as I get into the spider orchids, I’m going to leave most of their names blank because there are just to many of them, too many varieties that have only very slight differences, so unless it’s quite different or unusual it will just be a “spider”.

Spider

This next one had a strange yellow hew because of the brolly I was using to try and keep the wind away while taking pictures.

Spider

Most of these pictures came from a trip up to the Stirling Ranges, I’ve been here before a few years ago chasing flowers but this time I’m specifically looking for orchids and it hasn’t disappointed.

Dancing spider

A hairy red spider

Another hairy red spider

Reaching spider

Now I assume this next one is also a reaching spider but it’s looks fairly different. Ahhh, too hard, it’s a “spider orchid”.

Another reaching spider?

Spider on a spider

Sugar orchid

This sugar orchid doesn’t look very special but it’s tiny, I almost missed it completely while I was walking around searching because of it’s tiny size.