Botany Nerds Ahoy

blackers wrote:

Loving the spring weather and all the blooms. Nice pics Alfred, will have to do that walk.

Blackers. Hi mate. You’d be safe if you visited inside the next four weeks, it would’ve exploded by then with regards to flowering. AW

Cheers, I know the window is brief so had better get myself organised.

AlfredWallace wrote:

Seeds. Hi mate. This one ? It’s a wattle, last of its flowers, it’s one of the first to flower in Winter in and around Torquay, Anglesea etc. Roadside after roadside is lined with them, looks amazing.

It’s Acacia suaveolens Sweet Wattle.

It’s got blue/grey/green phyllodes, pale white- yellow flowers and lastly the seed follicle is incredible, blue-grey, metallic looking case that adds another attraction.

Many plants have the specific name ‘suaveolens’, simply means sweet smelling. AW

seeds wrote:

AlfredWallace wrote:

The bottom pic AW
I found it interesting as I thought that looks like a wattle leaf but the flower doesn’t

Seeds, oh , sorry. It’s Hakea ulicina Furze Hakea, endemic to Victoria, it’s a Proteaceous plant. Tough as and spiky, great bird habitat, leaves are hard like leather . AW

The light is coming earlier now and all the birds are getting into nesting. The currawong has gone into Beast Mode and is plucking pidgeons that get too close to the nest. He's also vomiting into the bird bath first thing, I think, to claim it for the day.

Was down the coast and in one area there is revegetation with native dune species going on, it was great to see that species are being selected deliberately with the aim of producing a more gentle gradient for the foredune.

What a Blooming Blossomy Season , Spring is .

Melbournes roads , streets and Gardens , are becoming Blossom Central !

The lost leaves , are all about to B found , again , taking the Bareness of Winter away 2 .

Bloody water takes a while , to Warm up , though :) !

velocityjohnno wrote:

The light is coming earlier now and all the birds are getting into nesting. The currawong has gone into Beast Mode and is plucking pidgeons that get too close to the nest. He's also vomiting into the bird bath first thing, I think, to claim it for the day.

Was down the coast and in one area there is revegetation with native dune species going on, it was great to see that species are being selected deliberately with the aim of producing a more gentle gradient for the foredune.

VJ. Good stuff, you’re a great nature observer.

Digressing a bit. How good was last Fridays waves and weather, sublime.

I’d like to know where, revegetation of dunes can be fraught with danger, site specifics are all different. AW

Pop Down wrote:

What a Blooming Blossomy Season , Spring is .

Melbournes roads , streets and Gardens , are becoming Blossom Central !

The lost leaves , are all about to B found , again , taking the Bareness of Winter away 2 .

Bloody water takes a while , to Warm up , though :) !

PopDown.

Hi mate, Melbourne city does come to life in Spring.

Birds are vocal, both types.

Water temperature in the ocean is fine now, always is, rarely below 13c on our coast, it’s the cold Winter wind that chills you. That seems to have disappeared which is good.
Big swells coming shortly, early to bed, good food, good attitude. Life’s great. AW

Blackers. Hi fella.

I took a photo of a recently built garden in Geelong.

Here’s a slightly advanced size version of that excellent plant Ozothamnus diosmifolius ‘Red Gingham’.

To its right just making its way is Hypocalymma linifolium with beautiful little minute yellow bottlebrush type flowers.

I’ve got two tubes of the former plant left over, they’re yours if you want them. AW

Thanks for thinking of me Alfred. To be fair to you I will pass as I cant see myself getting over your side in the near future, things are too busy here. I'm sure you will find a good home for them. Next time maybe. Plenty of waves coming, enjoy.

blackers wrote:

Thanks for thinking of me Alfred. To be fair to you I will pass as I cant see myself getting over your side in the near future, things are too busy here. I'm sure you will find a good home for them. Next time maybe. Plenty of waves coming, enjoy.

All the best. Very excited about the surf. AW

seeds wrote:

Hmmm plants hey?
It was like a sport.

Seeds. Hi mate.

Thanks for being a good’sport’.

Have you been down in your lower green pastures sampling the goods ?

I’m gabberflastered with how you posted to all threads.

When you say sport. Are you referring to a chance seedling of a plant found like a mutation come variation from the parent plant ?

If so, you are correct, ‘sports’ are found every now and then.

Many go onto becoming a new plant after at least 11 years trialling to observe it stays true to form.

Are you suggesting Ozothamnus diosmifolius’ Red Gingham ‘ is a ‘sport’ ?

I’ve researched heaps of resources, can’t find anything to tell me so. AW

seeds wrote:

Just sowing seeds AW
Those Red Ginghams. Drought tolerant I read.
Do they grow in shallow shitty soil?

Seeds. Hi mate. They prefer well draining sandy soils, sandy loams and or loamy sands.
Once established don’t need much watering at all, like most native plants, rainfall is sufficient and definitely no fertilising, after all most native plants don’t like soils containing too much nitrogen or phosphorus , simply the result of having evolved on soils low in both those elements. AW

May not officially be spring, but it’s definitely spring for the orchids which are enjoying this early burst of warmth.

Distracted wrote:

May not officially be spring, but it’s definitely spring for the orchids which are enjoying this early burst of warmth.

Distracted. Hi mate. How’s things?
They certainly are looking good, epiphytic and terrestrial.

Nice Dendrobium sp. I think. AW

.

What I wanted to post. A Father's Day owl

blackers wrote:

What I wanted to post. A Father's Day owl

Blackers. Hi mate. Hope you had a good Fathers Day.

Eastern Barn Owl, ( if it’s in Australia) , nice.

Where is that photo taken ?

Is there a message in the posting of the owl ?

A wise bird, wise Fathers . AW

AlfredWallace wrote:

blackers wrote:

What I wanted to post. A Father's Day owl

Blackers. Hi mate. Hope you had a good Fathers Day.

Eastern Barn Owl, ( if it’s in Australia) , nice.

Where is that photo taken ?

Is there a message in the posting of the owl ?

A wise bird, wise Fathers . AW

Hey Alfred. No message, the experience was just a gift for my old man yesterday, he's into owls. I mentioned it elsewhere.
Moonlit Sanctuary, Pearcedale. Glad he enjoyed it as his carport collapsed in the storms.

blackers wrote:

AlfredWallace wrote:

blackers wrote:

What I wanted to post. A Father's Day owl

Blackers. Hi mate. Hope you had a good Fathers Day.

Eastern Barn Owl, ( if it’s in Australia) , nice.

Where is that photo taken ?

Is there a message in the posting of the owl ?

A wise bird, wise Fathers . AW

Hey Alfred. No message, the experience was just a gift for my old man yesterday, he's into owls. I mentioned it elsewhere.
Moonlit Sanctuary, Pearcedale. Glad he enjoyed it as his carport collapsed in the storms.

Hi mate. Nice choice Moonlit. I’m involved with them through the Orange Bellied Parrot recovery program and captive breeding program on their premises, a very worthy organisation and wonderful global caring citizens.

I hope you and especially your father enjoyed his day out with you. All the best. AW

AlfredWallace][quote=Distracted wrote:

May not officially be spring, but it’s definitely spring for the orchids which are enjoying this early burst of warmth.

Distracted. Hi mate. How’s things?
They certainly are looking good, epiphytic and terrestrial.

Nice Dendrobium sp. I think. AW

Hi AW, going well, waves have been tiny though compared to Vicco! Probably D. speciosum “Rock Lily”, but there’s been a lot of breeding going on with them over the years.

That owl's beautiful!
...and right on cue AW this lovely creature scared the shit out of me. Cutting up a pile of wood and out she pops, sorry my bad! Never seen one this big, easily longer than a 30cm ruler, absolute unit of a bluey. Now I have to leave the pile there for her, on to other jobs...

...so I go get a beer and she's followed me inside! Got her back out under the house with a fresh bowl of water, hasn't rained in a while. Quick measure of the spot in this pic and she's about 45cm (the filthy tiles are my mess). Apologies if she's a he, or however it self-identifies, lovely creature.

watching a bloke get a beer, clear example of a gender-curious lizard transitioning.
(beautiful @Sprout, lotsa very hungry and thirsty reptiles coming out early, down in Vic/Soz
with these recent rains. The lack of rodents this winter, reckon they'll be frogging, birding, and bugging eagerly in drains and such) got any strawberries in the fridge?

Nature is woke. Some rainbow flags on ol spidey's rig.

'nature is woke' haha, gonna be a hard quote to beat over the weekend. (@zen transitioning to a Maldivian sibling atm, too, he woulda been our only hope). Loved your father's day share @blackers, so good, hope it was satisfying and manageable.

Anyone partial to rolling a fat one, could do worse than give themselves a couple of indulgent hours watching this underrated (though popular) collaboration of artistic goliaths.

"gender-curious lizard transitioning" hahaha brand new sentence. No strawberries, but I've put out some red apple. Great shots of spidey, in my youth I (allegedly) took a day time pinger and watched a spider build a web, it was AMAZING. Side note: I was pretty sick with a cold or whatever and it cured it, must have cooked it out of me. Dr. Spaceman recommendation.

Mr Spaceman Records come highly recommended. Dr S must be related. A couple more shots from last weekend.

blackers wrote:

that is one. intense. joey.

Hahaha that cracked me up! It so is! Give me some seeds cnut!

Funnily enough, I believe it's a red neck(ed) wallaby. So likely to be thinking just that.

Sprout wrote:

...so I go get a beer and she's followed me inside! Got her back out under the house with a fresh bowl of water, hasn't rained in a while. Quick measure of the spot in this pic and she's about 45cm (the filthy tiles are my mess). Apologies if she's a he, or however it self-identifies, lovely creature.

Sprout. Hi mate.

Beautiful stuff, it’s great knowing our establishments house biodiversity without even trying.
We leave them alone and vice versa. I love their clicking calls.

They readily give birth to live young around here, sometimes we’ve got four to six little ones scooting around. AW

blackers wrote:

Nature is woke. Some rainbow flags on ol spidey's rig.

Blackers. Hi mate. Nice photos, all of them.

One of the orb weavers. If you could see the dorsal view we could identify it to Genus and species.

And a lovely Notamacropus rufogriseus. Red Necked Wallaby , recently separated and distinct from Macropus rufogriseus. AW

Cheers AW. The spider was about 3mm long. Bit windy today, wouldn't stay still, so they are the best I could do.

Blackers. Looks like a Golden Orb Weaver

Winter just passed.

And I’m Lichen it !!!!

^ haha, oh, BOOM! brah,
your pics have a lovely at-moss..
(quite magical and beguiling, actually)

basesix wrote:

^ haha, oh, BOOM! brah,
your pics have a lovely at-moss..
(quite magical and beguiling, actually)

B6. The round ones in the last photo you could say, have at-moss spheres. AW

haha, you fun guy, you. love those pics.
any micro nature pic, where, in addition to it conjuring smells and season,
you could imagine architecture or town-planning being derived from it.. cool as.

Goin home from shift. This was last thing in SN that i saw. Good place to leave, thanx fellas. I spent a chunka my shift (not much) railing about confirmation bias over on the Seppo thread. This woulda been a better way to have spent that time.
Awful joke there A-Dubs.. bout the lichen. (lol) Awfully good, that is. Have a good day.

basesix wrote:

haha, you fun guy, you. love those pics.
any micro nature pic, where, in addition to it conjuring smells and season,
you could imagine architecture or town-planning being derived from it.. cool as.

Basesix. Hi mate , hope Sunday is treating you well and vice versa.

Well, I do like your mind shifting to architecture, those tiny to microscopic circles in the last lichen photo, substitute them for squares and well, you’d be looking into the mind of Le Corbusier. Merci beaucoup. AW

AlfredWallace wrote:

those tiny to microscopic circles in the last lichen photo, substitute them for squares and well, you’d be looking into the mind of Le Corbusier

I was going to say 'less brutalist than Le Corbusier', but to a micro, I reckon a lichen wall would be rough as guts, nice one. Brought to mind a book 'Ekistics' by Constantinos A Doxiadis. scroll down through 'more like this' on this pintrest link, you'll get the vibe (like 'Poetics of Space', 'Ekistics' was a bit cerebral for me):

https://au.pinterest.com/pin/inspiration-ekistics--230246599677965237/

Good Sunday, thank you AW, if a little grey and blah. Hope yours has been too. I am watching the Apollo 13 doco on netflix with the fire going and a curry bubbling (cities look like lichen from high above, too). Very much enjoyed your treatise on Satd'y springtime surfing, beautiful:

AlfredWallace wrote:

Nice waves around this side of the bay yesterday and today, classic weather, mild, sunny, oceanic pulses , Gannets, Cormorants, Oystercatchers, Singing Honeyeaters and a Rufous Bristle- bird in the car park and a Southern Right Whale out the back doing backflips. Life is so good. AW

basesix wrote:

AlfredWallace wrote:

those tiny to microscopic circles in the last lichen photo, substitute them for squares and well, you’d be looking into the mind of Le Corbusier

I was going to say 'less brutalist than Le Corbusier', but to a micro, I reckon a lichen wall would be rough as guts, nice one. Brought to mind a book 'Ekistics' by Constantinos A Doxiadis. scroll down through 'more like this' on this pintrest link, you'll get the vibe (like 'Poetics of Space', 'Ekistics' was a bit cerebral for me):

https://au.pinterest.com/pin/inspiration-ekistics--230246599677965237/

Good Sunday, thank you AW, if a little grey and blah. Hope yours has been too. I am watching the Apollo 13 doco on netflix with the fire going and a curry bubbling (cities look like lichen from high above, too). Very much enjoyed your treatise on Satd'y springtime surfing, beautiful:

AlfredWallace wrote:

Nice waves around this side of the bay yesterday and today, classic weather, mild, sunny, oceanic pulses , Gannets, Cormorants, Oystercatchers, Singing Honeyeaters and a Rufous Bristle- bird in the car park and a Southern Right Whale out the back doing backflips. Life is so good. AW

Basesix. Hi mate, I can feel the warmth and smell the curry from here.

It appears as though (mostly weather driven) most people are sheltering today, wind speed from the north is brisk thus lower expected temperatures. Lay day today, by choice, swell increase due for tomorrow morning, 4ft we think.
Have a rendezvous with a surf mate early.

I too have the Nectre slow combustion fire box going, about to whip up a noodle stir fry, surf load up.

I’ve an irruption of Litoria ewingii at home at present, I must have a very, very fecund community of them. Conditions are obviously favourable, the noise in the evening whilst in bed is philharmonic.

Thanks for the link, more food for the brain to digest. All the best. AW