Flowers
We approached Lesueur National Park late in the day, having driven north from Perth and then spent time exploring the Pinnacles in Nambung National Park. We didn't have as much time as we wanted, and we didn't want to leave. The place was amazing.
South West Australia takes some getting used to. Some things just don't look right; and it takes a while to figure out what it is. One of those things is the landscape. I finally realized what the problem was. In the western United States where we live, we have lots of forest, so we're used to that. We also have great treeless plains, so we're used to that. But in virtually any part of the United States, or North America, if sun reaches the ground there is some kind of ground cover — grasses, forbes, something grows there unless it's bare rock. Even then there's often lichens growing on the rocks. In South West Australia, there is no low-to-the-ground stuff; just bare ground. If you look out across the vast landscape it is a wicked impenetrable place, but there are no grasses, no forbes, no anything growing down on the ground. There are boatloads of thick shrubs, but nothing underneath them. At least that's what it looks like to me. I don't know if it's been that way for millennia, or if it's the result of colonization and overgrazing, but it's weird.
We found an actual nature walk and enjoyed it quite a bit. As with previous places we had stopped to look for flowers, it was unimpressive at first when one just looked at the large landscape. But if you got down into the weeds it had all sorts of cool stuff on display.
Australia is full of crazy endemic species which are unique to the Australian continent. Kingia australis is one of those. Our nature walk passed several Kingia, which when not in bloom look similar to "grass trees," Xanthorrhoea. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time of year to see them in bloom. When in bloom, they have big flower clusters sticking out the top kind of like the bobbles on a court jester's hat!
We found a lot of species we had already discovered earlier, but some new ones as well, and the signs told us things we hadn't yet learned.
According to the interpretive sign, Prickly dryandra is a shrub of the kwongan heath and provides good protection for nesting birds. It is also an important and reliable food source for honey possums. Unfortunately, we did not see any honey possums on our trip, probably not surprising since they are mainly nocturnal.
There are a zillion different species of wild Peas in Australia, but one species in particular is worth noting — Horned Poison (Gastrolobium polystachyum). Several of the species in the genus Gastrolobium naturally accumulate the chemical monofluoroacetic acid, the key ingredient in the highly toxic poison known in agricultural areas as 1080. Native mammals have developed an immunity to the poison, but introduced farm animals are easily killed by ingesting it.
There was a nice sign explaining some of the mutually beneficial relationships between some of the plants and animals endemic to Southwest Australia. Southwest Western Australia is one of 36 globally recognized biodiversity hotspots. Over half of the plant species found here and many of the animal species are endemic (occur nowhere else).
We were delighted to find a map showing camping areas on the Turquoise Coast. To be honest, we didn't know that's where we were, but the map was useful.
We hadn't seen as much as we wanted in the Lesueur area, but it was getting late. We pulled off the road at a picnic area, heated up water for hot chocolate and tea, made a quick dinner and watched the sun go down, then hit the sack.
The next moring when we got up we saw that it had frozen overnight. There was dew and frozen dew on all the flowers and plants. It made for some pretty cool designs.
We left Lesueur National Park and continued down the road, stopping at occasional spots that looked "interesting" in terms of flower and bird possibilities. At one draw where a small creek ran under the road we found an abundance of Cowslip Orchids and Spider Orchids. And I was delighted by a quick view of a Splendid Fairy Wren.
A bit further on we found a small roadside park by a creek. We stopped to grab a bite to eat and discovered there were some cool birds in the small grove of trees that constituted the park.
We found a rather plain looking Zamia Palm which fortunately had an interpretive sign next to it. It explained that the seeds are toxic, but the Yued people removed the toxins in a process involving burial and soaking them in water; they could then be roasted and the soft inner nut eaten. The nut has a tomato-like flavor. The Yued also used the "wool" from the cones as tinder for starting fires. Unfortunately we didn't see any of the cones.
We couldn't spend as much time as we wanted because we had a long drive ahead of us, down to Stirling Range National Park.
