The one plant that jumped out at me was the D. porecta it was quite common in some areas, and was huge with some plants over 50cm tall!!
D. porecta
We also found some dormant D. erythrorhiza ssp erythrorhiza with only thier dead leaves showing, there is also suposed to be other Drosera there but we did not see any.
We then headed to Kalamunda to see what we could find in some nice bushland. Kalamunda is situated on the laterite scarp that runs north south about 20-30km inland. On the way we stoped a some roadside bush on the scarp, a number of different flowers could be seen from the car window so required closer ispection. We found some nice D. erythrorhiza ssp colina and D. palida. There were also lots of stylidiums, peas and numerous other plants in flower.
Next stop was the bushland in Kalamunda. I could just make out some exposed rock on the other side of a small valley so headed out to investigate. On the way we found a strange Drosera, the only thing it seems it could be is a strange form of D. menziesii. There were a number of plants, none of which were in flower or had any buds, and all had single laves whirling up the stems. At first I thought of D. marchantii but didn't seem right.
Jumping over a small creek the bush thinned out as the soil became thinner over the granite base rock. Sure enough there were D. rosulata in the more exposed areas. There were also quite a few D. menziesii in flower. The plants were quite interesting as they had solid stems with the usual whirls of three leaves more like 6+.
Closeup of a D. menziesii
A prostrate plant
An aractive flower with white edges to the petals
There were a large number of other species in flower, several sun orchid species were almost open, unfortunatly it was a little to overcast for them to open.
There were masses of these plants in flower, most were up to 40cm tall with masses of flowers. The flowers start out white and turn red as they age. This was a tiny plant with 2 flowers.
A very pleasant surprise was these little guys
D. calistos
There were quite a few plants scattered through the exposed latterite areas. The size of the flower never ceases to amaze me, many were larger than the plant producing it!!
A closeup of a flower
running out of time we had to head back to the car. Back over the creek and growing in the denser scrub were some HUGE D. menziesii, One plant would had to have been close to 3 feet tall! Once again the plants had more than the usual 3 leaves per whirl.
After ariving home I had to remove 6 ticks, got to love tick season...
Cheers
George
