#lol gray

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#3494 - Stylidium cilatum - Golden Triggerplant

Looks like we were a week or so too early to see the flowers, last September. Despite the name, the flowers are mostly white - see this photo by Robert Davis -

Widespread along the Darling Escarpment and in adjacent regions.

Lol Gray, nr. Narrogin

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#3472 - Stylidium schoenoides - Cow Kicks

The specific epithet refers to the leaves, which resemble those of the sedge genus Schoenus.

Yet another WA endemic, growing in sand, sandy loam, and granite, on hillslopes, dunes, and plains, in forests, heaths, woodland and shrublands. it has a particularly vigorous trigger mechanism.

Lol Gray, Western Australia

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#3492 - Daviesia rhombifolia

First described in 1844 by Carl Daniel Friedrich Meissner, a Swiss botanist who did an incredible amount of work on Australian flora.

A spreading shrub endemic to the SW of Australia, from the very SW corner and fanning upwards into the Wheatbelt.

Lol Gray, nr. Narrogin, WA

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#3489 - Acacia celastrifolia - Glowing Wattle

First described in 1842 by George Bentham in Hooker's London Journal of Botany from specimens collected in the Swan River Colony by James Drummond - three names that should be familiar by now. 'celastrifolia' means 'Celastrus-leaved', a completely unrelated plant.

Grows in gravelly laterite and granite soils in various ecoregions of the SW.

Lol Gray, nr. Narrogin, WA

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#3475 - Lysinema pentapetalum - Curry Flower

A small genus entirely endemic to the SW. This one is widespread across this corner of the continent, and distinguished from the similar Lysinema ciliatum by the dull dark brown bracts below the flowers.

Lol Gray, Western Australia.

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#3464 - Petrophile heterophylla - Variable-leaved Conebush

The leaves in question are flattened, linear to lance-shaped with a sharply-pointed tip, but sometimes pinnately-divided or lobed.

It grows in gravelly lateritic soils in low heath, dense scrub, open woodland and forest from the south coast of WA, north to the Chittering area.

Lol Gray, Western Australia.

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#3547 - Santalum murrayanum - Bitter Quandong

One last species from September, and another step closer to the NZ trip.

Quandongs are in the Sandlewood genus, partially parasitic small trees prized from their aromatic timber, and edible fruit in the case of Australia's 'native peach' Santalum acuminatum. This one, not so much. Indigenous names for Bitter Quandong include coolyar and ming.

Sandlewoods are slow growing, difficult to germinate, and have largely been hunted to extinction in the wild. At least one species may be entirely gone.

Lol Gray, nr. Narrogin.

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#3493 - Trymalium sp.

A genus of shrubs, which with a single exception are all endemic to Western Australia.

The Rhamnaceae or Buckthorn family includes almost a thousand species, with some used as ornamentals or as a source of dye. Rhamnus itself was a very good wood for charcoal production and from there gunpowder.

Lol Gray, nr. Narrogin