Travelogue 2015/2 Pindar and the Wreath Flower,
# 2.
Wild Canadian Goose
an internet pic
November 11th, 2015,
G'day,
Our next stop on our recent excursion to see wildflowers and birds in the Murchison region of WA was Pindar and the fabulous Wreath Flower. Pindar like many towns in the wheatbelt of WA is a dying town. All that is left is a wheat receival bin (the railway station has closed as has the rail line), two or three houses and a pub that has closed down. Population- a dozen dogs and half a dozen people. The hotel appears to have somebody living in it as do a couple of the houses? Somebody must feed all the dogs I guess.
img-0425
Pindar Hotel
Five kilometres north of Pindar and the wheatbelt comes to an abrupt end. The road now enters uncleared station country which continues pretty much all the way until Queensland is reached. That is the uncleared land not station land which ends once the desert is reached.
Ten kilometres north on the Pindar Beringarra Road can be found, following a good season of rains, an excellent display of Wreath Flower or Wreath Lechenaultia (Lechenaultia macrantha). The lack of an "s" is correct as the original naming left out the "s" in error so I found out today. Apparently this year was one of the best displays for many years and it was certainly a better display than we had seen on previous visits. The Wreath Flower has a most unusual habit in that it grows where man has disturbed the soil with a grader as in grading a gravel road or with a front-end loader as in digging in a gravel pit. I don't know anybody that has ever seen a Wreath Flower growing in undisturbed bush land nor do they grow on the actual road. The Wreath Flower growing north of Pindar has another peculiarity: The flowers grow on either side of the road on the graded verge for about a kilometre and nowhere else in this area, certainly not in the surrounding undisturbed bush. Some years ago the Murchison Shire built a diversion around the flowers so that people could park on the road and not on the flowers without causing a hazard to passing traffic.
img- taken from Google Earth
The flowers used to grow on the western road before the eastern diversion was built but the flowers have all packed up their roots and moved to the new eastern diversion. Most peculiar! The old western road where the flowers used to be now has only a few straggly flowers while the new eastern diversion has thousands of flowers growing on the road verge. Many beautiful wildflowers grow in the surrounding bush as well and following is a sample of the Wreath Flowers growing on the verge and the wildflowers growing just off the verge and in the surrounding bush along a one kilometre stretch of road.
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img-0529 Pindar Beringarra Road the old section
Note the lack of Wreath Flowers on the road verge. |
Note: The following paragraph was inserted when checking for errors:- I have just realized that the next seven photos belong in the previous Travelogue 50 kms south at Tardun in the wheatbelt but not to worry.
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img-0514 Schoenia cassiniana. Pink Everlastings
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| img-0518 |
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| img-0520 Melaleuca |
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| img-0523 |
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| img-0525 Calytrix |
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| img-0526 Brunonia australis & Mulga scrub |
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| img-0527 Brunonia australis. Blue Pincushion | | |
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img-0529 Pindar Beringarra Road
The following photos were all taken either on the road verge or just in to the bush over a one kilometre stretch of the Pindar Beringarra Road, on the new section of road, between nine and 10 kms north of Pindar.
img-0596 Lechenaultia macrantha. Wreath Flower
The Wreath Flower, as you can see, is aptly named as it looks just like a wreath. They grow up to a metre in diameter from a single point in the centre. The specimen above is about 400 mm in dia. and is about the biggest I have seen. A dozen or more branches extend out from the centre just like spokes on a bike wheel and flowers grow on the end of each branch or spoke. I have never seen one grow in undisturbed bush only on graded road verges. In this vicinity many varieties of wildflowers grow amongst the Wreath Flowers and nearby in the bush, some of which can be seen below, but there were no Wreath Flowers outside the graded section of road verge. The flowers grow in just a few isolated spots, many miles apart, in a very small part of WA. The following map shows the distribution.
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img showing distribution of Wreath Lechenaultia.
In the following image the branches radiating out from a central point can be clearly seen.
img-0600.1 Wreath Lechenaultia
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| img-0533 Velleia rosea |
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| img-0537 Eremophila | | | |
| A man from space in the above photo or Casper the Friendly Ghost maybe? | |
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| img-0542 Hakea | | | |
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| img-0541 Hakea seed pods |
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| img-0546 Acacia |
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| img-0551 |
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| img-0552 Homalocalyx thryptomenoides |
img-0554 Homalocalyx thryptomenoides
img-0555 Goodenia
img-0556 Astroloma
img-0559
img-0567 Wreath Lechenaultia + Damperia wellsiana
img-0568 Massed flowers in Mulga
img-0569 Homalocalyx
img-0573 Massed flowers in Mulga
img-0578 Astroloma
img-0579 Astrolama
img-0582 Stylidium
img-0583 Acacia. Wattle
img-0586 Massed flowers in Mulga
The meaning of the word Mulga: an area of bush dominated by the Mulga plant (Acacia aneura).
This area of Mulga was a blaze of many different colours and I spent some time trying to capture a wide shot displaying all the bright colours that my eye could see but the camera is no where near as good as the human eye in capturing an image. I took probably 20 or more photos but didn't achieve my aim. More practice required eh? img-0579 is an example of the cameras ability in a close up shot of the Astroloma in the foreground. If you expand the above image you will find oranges, yellows, blues and whites everywhere.
img-0588Glischrocaryon aureum
img-0591
img-0604
img-.0612
The camera does a poor job in recording an image sometimes. In this image there are many hundreds of Wreath Flowers to the right of Rosalie. If you can expand the picture up you will be able to count heaps of em.
img-0616 Wreath Lechenaultia
Along this very short section of the road there is at least 50 Wreath Lechenaultia.
img-0613 Bonnie
img-0617 Lechenaultia macrantha
img-0618 Lechenaultia macrantha
img-0626 Triumfetta
img-0627 Lechenaultia macrantha
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Geoff
Next Travelogue takes in the flowers from here to Ballinyoo Bridge via Twin Peaks Station.
Travelogue 2015/2 Pindar and the Wreath Flower -- Ends
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