Little treasures (Wild Flower Watch V)

Once again the Queenstown Cemetery has out done itself.

Once again Al has to confess ignorance of Oz botany!

I saw this tiny star like flower as soon as I went into the cemetery.

 

Absolutely no idea what it is, but it is very sweet. Here it is at another angle

 

These have just been buds until today,
 
I had guessed they are not a native and I was right. They are Yellow Ixia, and as pretty as they are they are essentially a weed in the Oz bush.

I guess this blue delight is a Wahlenbergia species known as Australian bluebells but I could easily be wrong as it doesn’t look quite right.

I haven’t seen this pea before; unlike most of the others in the cemetery it is a creeping vine rather than a little shrub. I think it is Creeping Bossiaea (Bossiaea prostrate)

 

The tiny shrub peas are beginning to wither away

 

No idea what this is, but I guess it might be one of the “heaths”. They are minute, the petals about the size of a rice grain.

 

Another mystery. 

Unfortunately I didn’t notice the blade of grass across the frame until it came to processing the piccies at home

A trigger plant. I think this one has “fired”

 

This odd spear looked like budding flowers,

 

But in extreme close up I think this is actually a head of absolutely minute flowerettes

This Wahlenbergia  (if that is what it is) refused to be overshadowed by a weed!

 

But the treat of the day was definitely an orchid, or should I say number of orchids

 

They are Spotted Sun Orchids (Thelymitra merranae)

I went nuts shooting maybe fifty frames of various specimens poking up through the grass.

This one is just unfurling

 

Close ups

 

And super close ups

 

A spray of several in a group.

 

And this is my favourite of the day.