Seeking Out Australian Native Orchids #23

I had a brainwave for my National Park ride. Intersect the access roads to the fire trail that I walk on and revisit the sites I found in episode #22 http://mymark.mx/Orchids22. The plan for the bicycle part was to do my normal training ride and check out the Rosy sites I had found and see if I could get some insect photographs.

Well that was a fine idea - except I could not find the last site I visited. How do 3 orchid plants disappear? I must have been distracted. I did find one of the older sites but the flowers were well gone. Too bad then. Focus on riding up the hill and see what luck there might be. I did find a splendid colony of Bonnet Orchids - what caught my eye was the very pretty yellow flower in the bush up behind it. This is the feature image for the post.

This is some form of Pea Flower. As you can see, the stem has lots of leaves and the flower itself has more than 3 petals. It is very pretty. What caught my eye about the Bonnet orchids is about tall they were standing. They are on the right hand side just off centre of the rock

These plants are standing nearly 3 foot (75 cms) tall and the stems are ramrod straight. Not called Cryptostylis Erecta for nothing.

This ramrod-ness is amazing when one considers the size of the flower. Having spotted the pretty pea flower, I decided it was OK for the orchid spotter to look at other girls. Just like dating - sometimes your chances go up if you set aside your preconceptions and widen the field. Well I spied this purple flower with the fringed petals. It is called a Fringe Lily (Thysanotus multiflorus).

Well this Fringe Lily came with a bonus. Literally where I had leaned my bicycle was this orchid plant - budding and not yet flowering.

I do not know what this orchid is. We will have to wait until it flowers. It looks a lot like the plant I found in #22 - it has the same brown spots that I thought looked like a fungal infection. This is in a different location entirely which makes me think the spots are not an infection. This is what this plant looks like. I did check for leaves - nothing on the ground, though it looks like there is a leaf structure that hugs the bottom of the stem. This one differs from the other one I saw as it has multiple buds. Maybe these are two different species. Part 2 of the plan today was to find the access to the walking fire trail and seek out just that orchid. I did find it again - the bud has opened a little more which is great news.

I think you will agree the spots look very similar, though the buds themselves are different. I also went down the hill a little more to check on the dried out buds = dried out and the other headless plant is not going to perform. In all the sadness was some good news - a plant flowering not one foot away from the headless one.

This too is a Rosy Hyacinth Orchid (Dipodium Roseum) though it has no spots at all and the colour is quite a deeper, almost crimson colour. A little further up the hill just behind Spotty I spied another stem with buds - almost certainly Rosy's sister.

... and a little higher up was this lovely specimen with grand views down the valley

Now this Rosy Hyacinth Orchid is lighter in pink and it has spots. From here it was back to the bicycle and riding off to the other end of the fire trail to check on the last site in #22.

I found what I was looking for. I have found a great way to remember locations - recite out aloud the location information with a few measurement. "Walk past all the lily plants. Path has a sandy section and curves up the hillside. Big tree on the left hand side leaning a bit away from the track has the red stem at its base" Found it - bingo!!. The red stem is not an orchid - it is a red stem for a new grevillea bush.

The little plant that was on the ground has produced its flower. It is not an orchid - looks like some sort of daisy.

The amazing thing is that flower is only just a little bigger than a match head. I am pleased I came back - I also got to get a photograph of this Cow Orchid properly in focus

Cow Orchid (Cryptostylis Subulata)

In all a great morning's effort and two targets to come back to. Oops - I forgot to look at the suspected greenhood - it was really close to where Spotty is.

Note: Photos taken with Canon PowerShot G16 on November 28, 2016
You may note that I have used a URL Shortener for my link to #22. I use this when I post my Steemit posts on other platforms. That way I can track how many people follow the links from Facebook and the like - 43 and counting for #22.