Australian Native Plants at the ANBG Canberra

[ashley]

Is that a note of sarcasm I hear there, Ashley?  

Only the gentlest of irony Paul

Western Australians especially object to our winter cold + damp. 

[Paul T]

Here's the last from the January visit.....

While I've tried grouping the others into similar types.... the majority of these are in no particular order. 

Calytrix flavescens is a tiny little thing, this plant only 20-25cm high.  Beautiful flowers though.

Another smaller one, and I'm guessing may be closely related, is Hypocalymma strictum ssp strictum.  This was about the same size as the previous one.  The flowers are very intricate.

This is a Commersonia species, which didn't have a species label.  This is only a young plant at the moment, but the flowers when you look closely at them are almost architectural.

Teucrium argutum is a ground cover, rather reminiscent of some other genus that we see in garden centres like Lamium etc.

Please click on the pic for a larger version.

[Paul T]

The Crinum angustifolia were in flower in the rockery as well.  These flower very well each summer.

Goodenia macmillanii is a ground cover, although very sparse.  Each flower is about 2.5cm across, but they never seem to make a mass of flowers, at least not in our climate here (which I think is far from it's native one).

Another groundcover is Hibbertia vestita.  The whole plant was maybe 10 to 15cm tall, and 50cm across.  Yellow flowers, like the majority of the genus.

Scaevola ramosissima is a lovely pruple groundcover, I would imagine very showy once established.  This was in one of the newly established areas at the entrance to the Sydney Basin (I'll show a picture of one of these areas shortly).  Each flower was about 2cm across.

Melaleuca nesophila is one I would grow in my garden here if I had the space.  The flowerhead is about 2.5cm across, but the most beautiful bright purple.  The plant in the pic was about 2.5m tall, but there are taller ones in other parts of the ANBG.  Really striking, and very covetable.    

Persoonia pinifolia is has bright golden orange flowers.  Not nearly noticeable at a distance as they are up close.  The birds would love these.

Please click on the pic for a larger version.

[Paul T]

And the last from this trip.... a couple of more general pics of some areas.

The first is one of the new areas at the entrance to the Sydney Basin area.  Everything is still small and newly planted.  There is some very interesting stuff in this area that will be gorgeous in future years.  The second shot is from further down the Sydney Basin, showing some of the established tree ferns and rainforest type areas.

The other shot is of the waterfall near the rockery.  There are Eastern Water Dragons sunning themselves on all the rocks around it during the warmer months (they hibernate underground during the winter).

I have had one other short trip to the ANBG a couple of weeks ago.  I will post a few pics from that soon.  I'm hoping to get back there in the next week or so, and hopefully there should be a new range of plants out by then.  I hope you've all enjoyed some of these posts from this trip.

Enjoy.  

Please click on the pic for a larger version.

[jomowi]

Paul, thank you for your further pics.  Although many of the plants are unfamiliar to me, others bring back memories.  I clearly remember Eucalyptus flowers like E. macrocarpa or similar when in King's Park in Perth.  We drove from Adelaide to Perth and back circa. 1964 when there was still 700 miles of dirt road across the Nullarbor plain between Port Augusta and Coolgardie.  It was considered quite an intrepid thing to do at the time.

[Paul T]

I'd still consider it fairly intrepid now!! 

 

[jomowi]

I seem to remember the tarmac was laid after we left Australia in readiness for the Commonwealth Games in Perth. 

Yes, it was quite a journey.  The quality of the road left a lot to be desired.  Where it had not been recently graded, it had become corrugated through use and you could not do more than about 20 mph.  Then there was the “bull dust” which could be up to a foot deep which could hide the pot holes.  Large  uncovered potholes could be just as deep, and you often got warning of them because some kind motorist who had found out the hard way had left a branch sticking out of them.  That is, where there were branches to be had.  After all Nullabor means “no trees”

Just after we left Port Augusta there was a large sign full of bullet holes which read "No water for 700 miles". Highlights that I remember were stopping at Eucla and seeing the remains of the old Telegraph station (including the privvy!) almost completely covered by drifting sand.  Another memory was lying flat on the ground between the longest straight stretch of railway line in the world to take a photograph of the track stretching into the distance and ‘meeting’ at infinity.  Do they still run the “Tea and Sugar” - the train which takes a week and stops at remote locations where station owners can come on board and do their shopping, banking, have a haircut etc?

When we got to Coolgardie, every garage amongst other services advertised vacuum cleaners for hire.  This was to get the by now ubiquitous dust out of the car.  It even stuck to our eyelashes.  We visited the gold mines at Kalgoorlie.  On the return journey, we decided when we were close enough to civilsation to use our emergency fuel.  When we got to the first filling station to replenish, there was a power cut, and we had to sit it out, entertained by a pet sulphur crested cockatoo.

Sorry, I seem to have digressed from the thread topic.

[jomowi]

One last tale I remember: because we had underestimated the time the journey would take and had a deadline to meet, we had to do some night driving which was even more challenging than the day.  At one stage we spotted headlights coming towards us.  Estimating that the other car could travel no faster than us, and noting the time it took from first sighting to when we met - about half an hour, - we calculated the distance away he must have been when we first saw him. Can't remember what it was, - probably the maximum it could have been before the effect of the earth's curvature intervened?  When we drew alongside, the other car stopped.  We stopped to see if he was in any trouble - "no" he said "I just stopped for a chat!"

[Paul T]

No idea about the Tea and Sugar run, unfortunately.  A very, very long way from here.

I love the "just stop for a chat".... on straight roads like that you can see for such long distances that it can be very confusing to judge how far anyone is away from you..... it's hard enough on normal straight stretches, but given the sheer scale of them out west, I can only imagine.

[MarcR]

Those of us in Western California can grow most of those plants; and those, like me, in western Oregon can grow very many of them.  So for us there is no need to wish. I believe that the same is true of Southern France and Italy ; and likely Western Spain, and Portugal.  It may also be true of the west coast of southern England.

[MarcR]

Lesley,

A quick search revealed that H. dentata has dentate leaves (i.e an at least partially toothed margin in this case), whereas the H. scandens doesn't.  H. dentata is also more shade tolerant that H. scandens apparently.  It also doesn't smother plants like H. scandens is want to do.

I have pink and blue Wisteria and Hibertia dentata climbing my Laburnum anagyroides.
The Laburnum has a really short bloom season; but it has a nice structure. the vines put flowers on that structure over an extended time. Twice over a six year period the Hibertia has frozen to the ground, and come back from the root. At first I thought that the Wisteria and Hibertia would look strange together when they overlap; but, they look fine together.