Having a feel for one's local area. Hunches can pay off.

Sometimes, one's instincts (or hunches) bear fruit.
This morning I set out to check an area opposite the Barren Grounds (approx 10 Km along the Jamberoo Mountain Road from Robertson). I had been in that area several years ago and found what I thought at the time were some Nodding Greenhoods (Pterostylis nutans).

I had a feeling that those plants warranted a good looking at, to double check the ID I had casually ascribed to those Orchids years before. And anyway, I hadn't been in that particular area for a few years.

Sure enough, I stopped opposite the Barren Grounds, walked back about 100 metres, to get past a thicket of native Stinging Nettles and some Native Raspberry prickles. I then walked off the road and quickly found a small colony of Greenhoods.

One look convinced me they were in fact not Pterostylis nutans, but the similar species Pterostylis hispidula (Small Nodding Greenhoods). 

Pterostylis hispidula
(Small Nodding Greehood).
The angle at which the Lateral Sepals
(otherwise known as "points" in most Greenhoods)
are held is distinctive.

Colony of Pterostylis hispidula
(Small Nodding Greehoods).

Pterostylis hispidula
(Small Nodding Greehood).
The bronze tinge on the tip of the "Hood" (Galea)
is also diagnostic.

Lateral view of Pterostylis hispidula
(Small Nodding Greehoods).
In this shot, the labellum is visible (with cobweb)

Pterostylis hispidula
(Small Nodding Greehoods).
The tip of the retracted labellum is just barely visible
These plants have sensitive labellums
which snap shut (inside the flower) if disturbed.
It is part of their pollination process.

I was also surprised to see a few flowers (nearly finished) of Spiranthes australis.

Spiranthes australis
amongst ferns in wet forest.

I am familiar with this species of Orchid, but I expect to see them in open swampy grasslands. But here they were growing in a wet grassy area, surrounded by Tree Ferns, Synoum and Lilly Pilly, and all were growing under tall wet sclerophyll Eucalypt forest.

Stick Insects "Doing what comes natur'lly"

When I was a youngster, in Melbourne, I remember this song as 

the "naughtiest" thing I had ever heard.

Doin' What Comes Natur'lly

"Folks are dumb where I come from,
They ain't had any learning.
Still they're happy as can be
Doin' what comes naturally (doin' what comes naturally).
Folks like us could never fuss
With schools and books and learning.
Still we've gone from A to Z,
Doin' what comes naturally (doin' what comes naturally)
You don't have to know how to read or write
When you're out with a feller in the pale moonlight.
You don't have to look in a book to find out
What he thinks of the moon and what is on his mind.
That comes naturally (that comes naturally)."

For some reason, given the strict Catholic background of my family, we were allowed to sing this song around the house, seemingly without giving offence. Strange that. My Mother was tone deaf (seriously so) and maybe she liked Ethel Merman's slightly atonal singing? Who knows?
I fondly remember hearing that George Gershwin "made her promise never to work with a singing teacher" Good advice, that! If your voice has a unique tone, and style, exploit it, don't let someone train it out of you.

Anyway, what's all this about?

 .

This.
(Click on the images to enlarge them)

A mating pair of Robinson's Stick-insects
Note the dramatic size difference between
the small male and the large female.
That size difference between the sexes
is quite a common factor
in many species of Stick-insects.
(but not as obvious in
the Lord Howe Island Phasmids)

These Stick-insects (Phasmids) were mating on my friends Matt and Cat's front door last night, when I came to pick Matt up to go to our Tuesday night Trivia Session at Three Creeks Cafe. To explain, the glass door served to silhouette these Stick-insects, so although they are only quite small, they were clearly visible, even in the dark  (with the light on in the house behind them).

I noticed these insects when I knocked on the door, and as they were still "engaged" several hours later, when we came back from Trivia Night, I sought permission to get some shots. As that involved using the Flash outside their front door, I knew I needed to seek permission, lest I alarm Cat and the kiddies. Anyway, it was all pretty discrete, and no concern was expressed. Certainly, no harm was done to the Stick-insects. They were still "engaged" when I left.

Head and antennae of the female
Robinson's Stick-insect.
Note the orange mouth parts
and the long antennae
 (with light bands across them)

This is a male which I had seen on my own front porch, earlier on during the day.

Male Robinson's Stick-insect

I would never have dared to ID this fellow from the poor quality photo I had of it. About the only detail I had been able to make out was the long antennae with faint banding evident. (In the picture, the two antennae are held together, between the two front legs. It makes it seem like it has 3 front legs, but that's never going to be right, is it?)

But with the much larger female turning up in the evening (three doors up the road) I had a bit more to work with.

I got out my copy of "The Complete Field Guide to Stick and Leaf Insects of Australia" by Paul D Brock and Jack W Hasenpusch and started to track through looking firstly at the illustrations and then the distribution maps (many tropical or West Australian species can easily be ruled out).
 

The Field Guide is also available in an eBook version.

You can even read a review of this Field Guide by "Snail" (my Blogging colleague) at her Blog site.

I was fortunate that after I had written about the Lord Howe Island Stick-insects, a few months ago, I had been contacted directly by Paul Brock. Paul works as a Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum in London, and is a world authority on Stick and Leaf Insects. Anyway, with my mating pair I decided to follow up a comment Paul had made in his email to me, that he had visited Robertson several years ago and had found a number of specimens of Candovia robinsoni (which seem to have ended up in the Australian Museum). These (confusingly named - in the circumstances) - Robinson's Stick-insects in and around Robertson. He commented that they were "common" in the local Robertson Nature Reserve (which is just down the end of my street) and at the Barren Grounds Nature Reserve. He also commented that these insects could easily be found at night. (Yet another entomologist who swears that night time is the best time to chase insects!).
 

Anyway, I fired off a quick email this morning to Paul, in London, with two of these images, and got a reply back several hours later, confirming my tentative ID of my pair of Stick-insects as Candovia robinsoni.  

Yeah! Its always good to have got the ID right, and then to get it confirmed by an expert.

He also confirmed that this species does not have wings (for my pair are presumably both "mature" and yet neither has wings), unlike some Phasmids which have dramatic wings.
 

It is always appreciated when serious entomologists and other specialists are prepared to assist the likes of myself, an amateur naturalist, doing my best to get a decent ID (but I sometimes get it wrong). In this case, my thanks go to Paul Brock for his advice.


Incidentally, it seems to be a season for Stick-insects as Joy, another Blogger, (from the north coast of NSW) has just reported on finding a much larger Stick-insect than mine. And so has my Facebook friend Murray, from the South Coast of NSW.

Christmas Bells arrive early at Barren Grounds

One of my Facebook friends, Caroline, asked me for some "Pretties" yesterday. So I promised to show her these wonderful Christmas Bells which I found at the Barren Grounds yesterday.

These Christmas Bells are the species Blandfordia nobilis.

I was pleased to be able to show these plants to my friend Pi-Wei, on a brief, late afternoon excursion. This gave her a chance to see some of the local plants in flower in nature, as distinct from in botanical artworks on her walls in the Gallery. There is a certain vibrancy in Nature which is impossible to capture in art (no matter how fine it may be), or photography - try as we might.

Christmas Bells Blandfordia nobilis

Close-up view of Blandfordia nobilis

Christmas Bells in situ - wet heath at the Barren Grounds

The habitat will also seem familiar habitat for Mick, as it is as close as we get to the "Wallum" habitat in her part of the world. Except that our wet heathland is on top of the Escarpment, at 600 metres. But it is a very high rainfall area, over a sandstone plateau. The Queensland "Wallum" country is, I believe, typically, coastal heathlands.

 This shot shows the range of micro-habitats here.

There is Epacris heaths in the foreground,

A large clump of Banksia ericifolia in mid-ground

then "Button Grass in the gully, then

as the soil rises in the distance, Eucalypts start, 

where the soil gets better drainage.

Habitat shot of wet heathland at Barren Grounds

Thelionema umbellatum - the Lemon Flax Lily

This is one of the prolific Boronias which flower at the Barren Grounds

and nearby Budderoo Plateau.

Boronia barkeriana

This one is a wet heath specialist.

Boronia thujona is found over shallow rock beds in the Barren Grounds.

It grows quite tall, (twice as tall as this plant)

and has pinnate leaves, 
which have a strong pungent odour when crushed.

Boronia barkeriana

  The lovely Round Leaf Tea Tree Leptospermum rotundifolium

This plant has large, soft pink flowers.
Very common on the sandstone heathlands and a prolific flowerer.

One of the loveliest plants on the heathlands.

Leptospermum rotundifolium

 This is the Pink Swamp Heath, Sprengelia incarnata

Sprengelia incarnata

And finally, to show one of my own favourite cultivated (garden) plants, the lovely "Duchesse de Nemours" herbaceous Peony. It is a Paeonia lactiflora variety. It has an exquisite scent.

White Peony - Duchesse de Nemours - a sweetly perfumed flower

I hope that there are enough "Pretties" for Caroline in this posting.

Isopogon flowers at the Barren Grounds

Last week I went to the Barren Grounds, and while there I took some photos of several Isopogon plants. Both were in flower on the same day, but they were different species. These plants are not rare, but they are interesting to examine in some detail.

The flower heads ("inflorescence") are very interesting in their construction. As a result of this, they are very popular with plant photographers. At the bud stage their elaborate makes them a perfect subject to point a camera at. The black scales visible between each bud are the tips of the bracts between each individual flower.That shot clearly shows the "fibonacci spirals" (two intersecting spiral lines - one shallow one, and the other much steeper) which allow for the plant head to grow without rupturing open along a single weak line. There has been much written about the mathematical relationships of the number of segments in these intersecting lines. The lines are known as "Fibonacci Spirals". They have been discussed on this blog, previously (using the same plant to demonstrate the point).

The Sydney Botanical Gardens botanists describe the flower heads and individual flowers as follows:

• Inflorescences usually terminal, spike-like and forming ± globose to ellipsoid cone-like structures; each flower sessile within a bract, bracts tomentose outside, closely imbricate, enlarging and becoming woody in fruit.
  
• Flowers actinomorphic. Perianth ± tubular; tepals 4 and equally spreading, base of the tube persistent in fruit. Anthers sessile within expanded apical portion of tepals. Hypogonous glands absent. Ovary sessile; ovule 1;
  
• style filiform, pollen presenter usually dilated and separated from a bulbous hairy portion ('brush') by a short constriction.

I must confess to being frustrated regularly by the botanists' use of the phrase "more or less" (represented by the ± symbol in the quotes above), but I know for every hard rule one might like to draw about plants, there seems to be an exception. That's why it happens to be so hard to describe plants with clear rules. And there are few families of plants for which this is truer than for the Proteaceae. Indeed that fact was recognised by the Carl Linnaeus (yes, the original plant-naming guy himself) who named the original Protea genus after Proteus, the Greek God who was famous (in mythology) for being a "shape-changer".

The first plant to consider today is the "Broad-leaf Drumsticks" Isopogon anemonifolius. It takes its specific name for the popular spring garden flower - the Anemone, which has a distinctively broad, dissected leaf. This species is widely distributed in coast and adjacent ranges of NSW, from Ulladulla northwards. The flattened leaf segments are strongly divided towards the end of the leaf. This is clearly visible in this image.The second species is Isopogon anethifolius the "Narrow-leaf Drumsticks". It takes its name from its resemblance to the finely divided leaves of Anise (- the source of Aniseed). This plant is restricted to the Blue Mountains, the southern section of the Sydney region and along the Divide, as far south as Braidwood. The finely divided leaves are clearly visible in this image.
This plant can be confused with the related Petrophile pedunculata, which has a similar leaf and a similar distribution. However, Petrophile plants have persistent hard scaly cones, whereas the seed heads of Isopogon plants develop as a tight ball (or cone), which then disintegrate upon maturity. The seeds shed into a mass of hairy seeds. So, if in doubt look for old seed cones on the plant you are looking at. If hard scaly cones are present, you are looking at a Petrophile - if not, is is probably an Isopogon.The flowers of the second plant were clearly opening, and although this is I. anethifolius, I do not believe there is any significant variation in flower form between the two species.
You can see the tepals curling back, leaving the prominent "style" protruding noticeably. Unlike the Waratahs and Grevilleas which I have discussed recently, these flowers are radially symmetrical ("actinomporphic"), which means the flower can be divided equally in several different planes, by passing a line along its vertical axis. By contrast, Grevilleas and Waratahs could only be divided equally into two bilateral planes (left and right). Those plants have curved flowers, can only be split notionally into equal left and right halves.

Isopogon flowers curl back to four parts, more or less equally (the "tepals" twist around a bit - but the four-way split is clear). This is visible in the following image, which is simply two flowers from the image above "cleaned up" (thanks to a bit of Photoshop work) by removing other flowers from the background.
And now for one of those little surprises which occur when examining one's flower images when processing them for blogging. I found a small fly - in the image of the I. anemonifolius (Image 2 above - go back and have a look - it is there, barely visible, under the right side of the flower).
With the obvious green head and green eyes, it is probably a Dolichopidid Fly, which have a strong metallic sheen about them. They are not plant pollinators, but rather predate on smaller soft-bodied insects. According to Peter Chew's website, the Green Long-legged Fly habitually rests on leaves, just as this little guy is doing.

If I had seen the fly when I was taking the photo, I would have tried for a clearer image.
.
.

The Nature of Bladderworts - (Fairies Aprons)

Several days ago, Duncan commented on my previous post about "Fairies Aprons". Duncan pointed out that in Gippsland, the country was drying out, and the once common Bladderworts were disappearing. He wrote:

• "You captured the colour of the Utricularia beautifully, a gorgeous little plant. The swamps around here that used to hold it have been dry for quite a few years now, so we may have lost it. However Gouldiae and I were pleased to find it flowering in a sphagnum moss swamp in the high country last season."

Large "Fairies Aprons" - Utricularia dichotoma

Very generous comments by Duncan, thanks. Unfortunately, I cannot make it rain in Gippsland, guys. I wish.....

Where I saw these plants is on a flat sandstone plateau, with poor drainage, and as we have had the occasional "top-up" of rain recently, the low-lying areas are water logged. That is where these plants love to grow - preferably in shallow water. In Robertson, with deep, friable soil, the country does not feel wet. By contrast, just 5 Km away, on the flat sandstone plateau, if the rock sheet under the shallow soil is more-or-less continuous (as it generally is), then although the sandy soil is not good at holding water, the rock layer just below traps the water very effectively indeed. Hence, pools of water in shallow soil areas, lying on the flat sandstone base are common.

As a gardener, in Canberra, I remember trying to understand the instructions for growing Christmas Bells - you needed "moist, well drained, soil". As someone living on deep loamy soil (at the time), I wondered how on earth could one have those seemingly contradictory soil conditions? Simple answer, move to where there is a flat sandstone plateau, in a high rainfall area.

That's what the Carrington and Gerringong Falls areas, on the Budderoo Plateau and the Barren Grounds does better than just about anywhere else I know of. These same areas grows Fairies Aprons well, in addition to the Christmas Bells I mentioned - (but they are not yet in flower).

Tiny flowers of the "Small Bladderwort" - Utricularia lateriflora

This species is a genuinely tiny plant - growing only a mere 6 cm tall, (or less) - shorter than my finger. They are growing out on the Barren Grounds, beside a track, in a shallow pool of clear water.

Botanical Illustration from PlantNET
it clearly shows the "spur" underneath the main petal (lower left image)

The flowers are a softer lilac colour than the other species, and much, much smaller. In fact, if I had not been looking up the books a few days beforehand, I would not have recognised these plants as "Fairies Aprons".

There is a prominent structure, referred to as a "spur" underneath the main, lower, "lip-like" petal. After much searching I have finally found a reference to the biological or reproductive function of the "spur" underneath the main petal. Apparently the spur is a nectary, and so it is the attractive part of the flower for a large pollinator, like a Bee. The Bee lands on the front of the flower, the petal, and the weight of the Bee pulls down the petal, opening up the top of the "spur" to the proboscis of the Bee. It also exposes the stigma of the plant to be pollinated.
Just about everything about "Bladderworts" is unusual. According to the technical botanists, they do not have true roots, or even true leaves. Instead they are described as having "stolons" - which act as "leaves", and also as "roots" and in addition these stolons also produce "Bladders" which act like traps. These are touch-sensitive devices which can open their "doors" suddenly (like the mouth of a fish) to suck in water, and then any minute animals which might have been caught are then absorbed, chemically. F.E. Lloyd, Emeritus Professor of Botany at McGill University literally "wrote the book" on Carnivorous Plants, in 1942.

Front view of Utricularia laterifolia
This is approx 6 times life size. It is a tiny flower.

Utricularias, ("Bladderworts" or "Fairies Aprons") are carnivorous plants. As such they are beloved of collectors of carnivorous plants, from Sundews, to Venus Fly Traps. Problem is, unlike Sundews, you cannot see them "eating" their prey, for their method of trapping minute prey is hidden underground, or underwater. They produce "Bladders" on their underground (or underwater) stolons. This is very well illustrated on this link. I will never think badly of "trainspotters" again - these Carnivorous Plant enthusiasts take the cake - for obsessiveness.

But having said that, clearly Duncan and I both like Utricularias.

Biographical notes: I vividly remember, as a child, going on plant outings with my family in the company of an old, but venerable lady - a famous plant expert in Melbourne, in those days. She was Miss Winifred Waddell. Miss Waddell was a bit of a character, and had very strong views against the Mr Arthur Swaby, and the other founders of the Society for Growing Australian Plants as "murderers" (of native plants - I hasten to add). This was because of the SGAP policy of preserving native plant species, by growing them in gardens. Miss Waddell was a pure conservationist (indeed a "preservationist") - fighting to protect the last vestiges of habitat of rare plants. She was very keen on establishing "roadside reserves", and would she would endlessly lobby the Country Roads Authority to establish such reserves. I recall going out on the roads near Dandenong. Having revisited these areas last year, I doubt that many, if any, of these tiny roadside reserves have survived the crazy spread of suburbia in eastern Melbourne.

My mother used tell the story of receiving a phone call from Miss Waddell one evening, asking for my father. Mum happily told her that Dad was off at the inaugural meeting of Mr Swabey's group. Miss Waddell just said: "Humph - those Murderers !!!" and hung up.

Ah, the Politics of Conservation were alive and well, over 50 years ago.

But what I remember most vividly is being with this lady when we would find tiny Sundews and Fairies Aprons - the "little darlings". As I was an 8 year old, with sharp eyes, I was good at finding these things. Happy memories for me - no wonder I love these plants - some 50 years later.

Miss Waddell's entry in the "Women in Australian Science" "Bright Sparcs" website is here.

When is an Ant not an ant? When it is a Fly.

When I was at the Barren Grounds yesterday, with a group of birdwatchers, we were distracted by a strange looking Ant-like creature walking (almost running) all around the picnic table in the shelter shed there.

I could not get a good fix on what kind of creature this was, at the time. It moved fast, by walking quickly on its distinctively long legs. It looked like an Ant. But was it? Could it have been a wasp? Or even a Spider? There are Ant-mimicking Spiders, after all.Just in case it might have been an aberrant Spider we decided to check the number of legs, and came up with an odd number - literally an odd number. It appeared to have only 5 legs, and that always makes it hard to work out what kind of creature it is, for obviously it has been damaged, as often happens in Nature. I recall a Phasmid (Stick Insect) I once found which is famous for having a "sacrificial" strategy, of losing limbs, or parts thereof, in order to allow the insect to survive attacks by birds - a similar strategy is used by Skinks, of course, which readily shed their tail tip, but can survive such an attack and even re-grow a new tip of the tail.

As someone who once thought seriously about buying a 5 cylinder Audi, I am always intrigued by such seeming imbalance. But I digress.

The clue to the identity of this creature is here. At full resolution the head shot shows a distinctive shadow (from the flash).See what I mean? The v-shaped protrusion is typical of a Fly. As a matter of fact, you can even check out David's wonderful shot of a Hoverfly, and see a similar antenna structure on its face. As soon as I spotted that v-shaped shadow, I checked the positive image itself, and realised I was staring a fly's face. Even the red eyes on each side of the head became obvious as typical fly eyes (obvious once you work out what you are looking at).

But it was the shadow of the short antennae which swung it for me. You see wasps and bees (related creatures - Hymenoptera) both have prominent mid-sized antennae which are distinctively bent ("elbowed" as Peter Chew refers to it). By contrast, Flies (Diptera) have very short, straight antennae - which is what I had noticed.

From that moment on, it was simply a question of searching the available internet references.

I started with the wonderful Chew Family's Insects and Spiders of Brisbane. That took me to the prospect of it being a "Stilt-legged Fly". I followed a further link to Nick Monaghan's "Life Unseen" website. and I found that it was indeed a "Stilt-legged Fly" - indeed he has a 'dead ringer' for my insect, under the name of Metopochetus sp.

So, that reminds me of the old joke: "When is a fly, not a fly? When it is a Walk!"

In all the time we watched this creature, running around the picnic table, crossing large gaps between the rustic boards on the table, etc, it never attempted to fly. That's why we thought it was an Ant. Indeed its transparent wings were held so close to the body (not widely spread, as in many flies), that the wings simply looked like a metallic sheen on the body of the insect.

Just to help clarify the shape of the insect, I spent some time on Photoshop, removing the shadows (because I had photographed it with the flash, on a Macro setting). In a sense it was just as well I did, as it was the shadow which gave me the clue as to the identity of this creature, as I mentioned. But the true shape of the insect is more clearly visible now, once the shadows have been removed.
I still think it looks like an Ant - but I am convinced that it is indeed a Stilt-legged Fly.
But with 5 legs, it might just be an "Audi-fly".

By the way, it was almost impossible for me to get a really clear focus on this creature, as it ran around the picnic table. These days, I only have manual controls on my Micro lens (A control ring on the Micro lens has broken). So just consider how amazing is David's achievement to snap that hoverfly in perfect focus, when in flight? No wonder his blog is called "Focus on Nature".

Bird Orchids still going strong

I have been away (to Brisbane) and then I have taken a break, to try and catch up with other writing. I have not achieved that goal, but I feel I need the discipline imposed by daily blogging. So I am getting back into it.

Today I am doing an easy blog - another story about the local Bird Orchids out on the Budderoo Plateau. Simpliglottis chlorantha, (a.k.a. Chiloglottis chlorantha), the Wollongong Bird Orchid. It is not found in Wollongong, but rather, up on the Budderoo Plateau, It is described as being located in the general "Knights Hill" area, but as Knights Hill is a basalt intrusion through the Sandstone Plateau, with rainforest habitat, even that locator is misleading. This area is adjacent to the better known Barren Grounds. As with the Barren Grounds, it is a classic Sandstone heathland habitat.

Wollongong Bird Orchid - Simpliglottis chlorantha
The red colour is underneath the "labellum" which is held nearly vertical.

I took Alan Stephenson from ANOS Illawarra to see these plants. At least we found many flowers, with some buds still to come. Alan has a contact, a scientist from the ANU who has studied pollination of Orchids (by pseudo-copulation by certain species of wasps), and he wanted to ascertain that these plants are still flowering, before advising this chap that it is worth the trip here. Well, yes, it should be.

A perfect bud

The "osmophores" (glands) on the Labellum.
The largest glands are red, and very large.
Smaller tall glands in the middle are yellowish green.
At the very front of the labellum is a series of rounded glands.
The largest one, at the front, is heart-shaped, and resembles a small blob of green jelly.

This is a photo of the very first flower I found open (this year), on 19 July 2008. You can see that the leaves have been chewed heavily, presumably by slugs or snails. In this location, one would assume that these would be native creatures. You can see that the plant closes the labellum against the "column" to protect the stigma, once the plant has been pollinated. Judging by how severely this plant has been chewed, that looks like a good survival strategy.

Here is the very same flower, as photographed on 19 July 2008 . You can see the distinctively bent stem (photo taken from a different angle).Here is the side-on view of the same flower, as taken on 19 July 2008 (6 weeks ago). Given that there are still a number of small buds in this little colony of plants, they obviously have a long flowering season.

Pink Beard-heath - Leucopogon ericoides

Firstly, this is the general habitat of the Budderoo Plateau. We are looking from "heathland" (not visible because of the long-lens image) out over a lower section of Eucalypt forest. Clearly this is part of a sandstone plateau. In the medium distance you can see the one of the bluffs in the Barren Grounds (to the centre left), and to the right is Broughton Head, a free-standing ridge which is an ancient remnant of the Illawarra Escarpment.
You are looking through Broughton Pass. Broughton Head is an isolated outcrop of rock which separates Kangaroo Valley from the coastal strip. It is the dominant mountain located behind the village of Berry, on the Pacific Highway. In the far distance, one can just make out a flat coastal stretch of land, with the Pacific Ocean just visible as a light blue line below the horizon. From the map, this would be where Gerringong is located, south from Kiama.

You can see that while the Budderoo Plateau area is quite high (approx 740 metres), the climate is definitely influenced by its proximity to the Ocean. It is cool and very high in rainfall, and subject to sudden fogs, especially in summer.

Leucopogon ericoides (Pink Beard-heath) is a very dense-growing heath plant from out on the sandstone country on the Budderoo Plateau. It has a quite strong perfume, which is noticeable as you walk along the road, close to where these plants are growing.
In this photo you can see the flowers, the buds (with a red sepals, from which the white flowers can be seen to be emerging- see the buds at centre right of image). The narrow, dark leaves are visible, and on the far left one can clearly see the striped and slightly recurved underside of a leaf. All these features are diagnostic of this species.

Below is a photo of a stem with pink buds and the pointed leaves. The fact that these flowers appear in groups, in the leaf axils is also diagnostic. Most of the colour actually comes from the sepals through which the flowers emerge, as they open. The tips of the flowers, when in bud, are pink, but they open white.
Below is a close-up of a single flower. You can see the woolly surface of the inside of the flower from which this plant genus gets its name - meaning "white beard". These woolly flowers distinguish Leucopogon from other related plants, such as Epacris. This species holds its flower widely reflexed when fully opened. The width of this flower is approx 5mm. The stamens, which in this genus are said to be held deep within the corolla tube, in fact are quite clearly visible, because of the way the flower opens itself so widely. The parts of the flower are in "fives" - 5 "lobes" (in layman's speak - petals), 5 stamens.
This image will open to full screen size. It is worth clicking on the image, to open it up to its full size, to see the flower in full detail.