#meelup

[artschoolglasses]

Castle Rock Beach, Meelup, West Australia

Lushfoil Photography Sim

[drhoz]

#1750 - Melaleuca granitica - Granite Claw Flower

Formerly Calothamnus graniticus, until it got renamed in 2014.  There’s two subspecies, both near-threatened, and since this one was growing in thin laterite soill over granite at Meelup Beach, this one was probably Melaleuca granitica granitica, the floral emblem of nearby Busselton.  The flowers are usually bright red (sometimes cream), and sprout in clusters or irregular spikes containing 2 to 25 individual flowers, usually on old, leafless wood.

Quite an attractive shrub in warm, sunny gardens, growing well from seed and accepting pruning. 

[tryalittlel]

✖️ #littleholiday ✖️ On a trip down south his weekend and dayum it’s gorgeous down here! 😍😍😍 #meelup #meelupbeach #castlerock #southwest #perthisok #longweekend #holiday #douth #beach #perfection

[drhoz]

#1763 - Stylidium petiolare

Another Triggerplant from among the granite outcrops above Meelup Beach. 

A reasonably common species, growing in the coastal and wheatbelt zones between Geraldton and Albany. It’s one of the triggerplants that punch visiting insects in the underside. Flowers may be white of pinkish, and appear in August and October - as you can probably guess from the tiny cluster of leaves, they’re not very noticeable the rest of the year. Most of their resources go into a perennial bulb.

[drhoz]

#1770 - Diplolaena dampieri - Dampier's Rose

AKA Southern Native Rose. It’s not in the rose family. 

A very attractive shrub, up to 2m tall, in the Rue or Citrus family (Rutaceae), named from the Greek for double-cloaked 'diploos' 'chlaina'  in reference to the double row of bracts that envelope the flower, and English pirate and explorer William Dampier. It and the other 14 species are all WA endemics. 

It’s pollinated by a variety of insects and birds, and grows widely, but never in abundance, on coastal limestone & dunes, granite rocks from Perth down to Augusta at the extreme SW corner of the continent. 

This one was growing on granite above Meelup Beach. 

[drhoz]

#1762 - Stylidium affine -  Queen Triggerplant

In coastal woodland in shallow sandy laterite soil on granite, at Meelup Beach near Dunsborough.

One of Western Australia’s larger Triggerplants, growing in coastal areas, hillslopes and gullies in Wandoo or Jarrah forest or low scrub, in soils ranging from sandy clay and loam to granite. Compared to most of the WA endemics I’ve been covering, Meelup actually seems to be at the southern edge of the range, which covers the Avon Wheatbelt, Jarrah Forest, and Swan Coastal Plain.

The leaves on this species are very thin and needle-like, but leaf shape in the genus is highly diverse. Like other Stylidiums, the flowers have four petals, and an ingenious trap from visiting insects - a curved column bent down behind the flower that will swing up over the flower and klonk the pollinator on the head, or swing up under the flower and gut-punch it, when it lands to feed and inserts its proboscis. The column of younger flowers will be tipped with with anthers bearing four packets of pollen, while older ones instead have the hairy stigma. Thus a young flower will deposit pollen in exactly the right place for an older flower to gather it up - assuming the insect hasn’t become cautious about repeated concussion. The trap will reset over a few minutes, and be ready to go again within ten.

They also have another trap for smaller insects - sticky hairs on various parts of the plant that can trap and digest tiny insects. 

Most of the approximately 300 species are only found in Australia, making it the fifth largest genus in the country. There’s 50 species around Perth, alone.

[drhoz]

#1751 - Darwinia citriodora - Lemon-scented Darwinia

These two photos by me, at the headland above Meelup Beach, in a pile of heavily eroding granite boulders.

By Brett Montgomery - CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24229640

Formally described in 1837 by Stefan Endlicher who gave it the name Genetyllis citriodora. The description was published in Enumeratio plantarum quas in Novae Hollandiæ ora austro-occidentali ad fluvium Cygnorum et in sinu Regis Georgii collegit Carolus Liber Baro de Hügel. You can probably translate the mention of the Swan River, and Baron Hugel, both of which I’ve mentioned before. King George Sound turns up in a lot of botantical descriptions from the period too. The Swan River, now the site of Perth, is about the north end of the range - it’s found in granite-derived soils in coastal areas from there to the Esperence Plain.

 In 1865, George Bentham changed the name to Darwinia citriodora and published the change in Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany  Named after the strong pleasant scent from the oil glands in the leaves, and Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus. Genestylis I don’t know.

It makes quite a nice garden shrub, flowering from the middle of the year until October, and often over a wider span. 

[eliteathleticscoach-blog]

Meelup Beach, Western Australia … Meelup Seashore, Western Australia 💦😍 #amazeballs