Photo/s of the day.

[moonvoice]

Candy and Floss






The Progressions of a Menzies Banksia flower
01 - budding. (I'm missing some earlier stages, but oh well)





02 - further budding, attaining full colour. Not yet any accessible pollen for birds or insects. Flower is already big (close your fist, it's a little bigger than that, usually).





03 - pollen emergence which begins from the base of the flower as the buds split open to reveal a lot of pollen. A somewhat quintessential Australian image, and the 'mascot' image for our suburb. Understandable, there's a fuckton of these around at the moment.





04 - full pollen emergence, which makes the banksia look rather scruffy, and makes the birds and insects rather happy. It takes about a month from start to finish, but for flowers this big and pollen heavy, and complex, it's understandable.





A crown of blossoms.





Child's Play - The area of bushland behind our house is used as a dumping ground for all sorts of things. But there are children in our neighbourhood who also frequently traipse through the bushland too. Some of those children are very young.





Blades - An invasive species. They're pretty when in flower, but they choke out the natives.

Comments

[silverjackal.livejournal.com]

I particularly like the "crown of blossoms" photo -- amazing foliage as well as amazing blossoms! (They remind me of particularly large, beautiful thistle blooms, though of course the structure is different.)

[zeeth_kyrah]

With leaves like those, that looks like a desert tree; with leaf and stem arrangements like that, it must be a very, very ancient plant; with energy-expensive flowers like that, definitely an almost prototypical Paleozoic plant.

Amazing to think that such things might have grown in forests, surrounding the evolving dinosaurs. Amazing that it has managed to survive to modern times -- and speaks to the possibility of outliving mankind if Earth's temperature keeps rising to prior levels.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Banksias aren't believed to be paleozoic-old; but they have been known in their modern form for about 40-50 millions years (eocene), according to fossil evidence.

There are hundreds of different species, and they're all awesome (and a lot are here, in the South-West of the continent, where we have incredible biodiversity).

[bunny-m.livejournal.com]

in the South-West of the continent, where we have incredible biodiversity

That'd no doubt be related to the shocking poverty of some of our 'soils', which leads to micro-climates and very specialised plant species, ne?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

That's spot on. :D And because certain areas might have a tiny bit more bauxite, or a tiny bit more iron, you get this incredible diversity within an area that is prone to diversity in the first place.

We are one of the 13 officially recognise biodiversity hotspots in the entire Asia-Pacific region, which is pretty cool. :D

*hugs*

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

Macrozamias are older - jurassic->cretacious period - we have one of those in our front yard, which is awesome.

[thoraofthenord.livejournal.com]

First photo is gorgeous! =)

[earthguardian.livejournal.com]

Those top plants look edible. Do people eat them? CAN they be eaten?

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

No, not outright edible, but you can soak them in water and make a sort of sugar cordial that the Aboriginals drink. :)

[assyrianwolfess.livejournal.com]

If there are no hummingbirds in Australia, what kinds of birds feed from those plants? :3

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

We have incredible bird diversity here, so the short answer is 'heaps!' but a variety of species of honeyeater (of which there are a few), silvereyes, woodswallows, wattlebirds, spinebills and then of course the different and colourful parrots, cockatoos and lorikeets - which while not specialised to banksias - have many ways of getting to the pollen they want and will settle for the rich bounty of a large banksia flower. :)

[jet-ski.livejournal.com]

when my bro and I were young we used to drag stuff into the bush and stash it there to play with... tho stuff started going missing so we had to hide it well... :P all of that bushland is gone now. It is very sad. :P

[silere.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is one amazing flower.

[sistahraven.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous! So neat to see how it looks as the pollen emerges.

[shimmerhawk.livejournal.com]

Those flowers are so beautiful and unusual looking. I love the shape and color. Even the leaves of the plant/tree they grow on are an interesting shape.

[tsukikokoro.livejournal.com]

I love the first photo!

Those look much prettier than the banksias in my neighborhood. The ones around here tend to hang down rather than grow up, and kind of remind me of giant, super-creepy caterpillars. >.>;; I can definitely see how the Menzies Banksia flowering could be selected as a "mascot." :)

Michael likes this.

[leahcim.livejournal.com]

ZOMG! *drools at first photo* Definitely desktop wallpaper material there.

[nokturnel.livejournal.com]

I'm really in love with that first picture! I can't stop looking at it.

[singingnettle.livejournal.com]

oooh.