#1764-1767 - Beard-heaths and others
#1764 - Leucopogon parviflorus - Coast Beard-Heath
AKA Native Currant
Native to most Australian coastlines, New Zealand, and the Chatham Islands, where it happily grows on granite, limestone, sand dunes and heath. Rarely found moe than 500m from the shoreline. In this case it was granite overlooking Smiths Beach, Yallingup.
It can grow up to 5m high, although wind-pruning can keep it much shorter, and flowers year-round. Oddly, the fruit turns brilliant white when ripe, and they are edible even if mostly seed.
#1765 - Hibbertia cuneiformis - Cutleaf Hibbertia
Initially named as Candollea cuneiformis in 1806 by French naturalist Jacques Labillardière in Novae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen, and subsequently placed in Hibbertia by English botanist James Edward Smith in 1811. The genus takes its name from George Hibbert (1757 - 1837), an English merchant and amateur botanist.
A SW endemic shrub up to 2m tall, growing in coastal dunes and swampy areas from Perth south to Esperance. The large flowers appear from January to March and June to November. Grown in shrubberies, containers & coastal gardens, where it tolerates a wde range of soils and conditions including full shade. It was growing in heavy shade here, that’s for sure.
Almost all Hibbertias have yellow flowers, but 3 are orange. 150 species occur in Australia with two are also in New Guinea; 24 species in New Caledonia with one also found in Fiji, and one endemic to Madagascar.
#1766 - Lomandra purpurea - Erect Purple Mat Rush
Lomandra is a genus of perennial, herbaceous monocots now included in the family Asparagaceae. Previous work has put them in the Dasypogonaceae, Xanthorrhoeaceae, or Liliaceae. There are 51 species, 49 endemic to Australia and the other two also found in New Guinea and New Caledonia.
Many of them are tufted deciduous perennials with long narrow blade-like leaves rersembling grass, growing from from a central stemless base with thick woody rhizomes and fibrous roots. They’re a major groundcover in Australia bushland, but can be hard to tell apart since they only flower rarely - we were quite lucky to see this one at Carbunup, easily distinguished from others in the genus by the deep purple flowers spaced in bunches along the stem.
#1767 - Lomandra preissii
From the Greek for robe-man, referring to the border of the anthers in some species. Johann August Ludwig Preiss (1811 - 1883) collected more than 2700 species in Western Australia, and this isn’t the only one that got named after him.
Another of the mat rushes so common in Australian bushland - flowers can be purple and yellow, plain green (for both male and female plants), or china blue (male plants only). Leaves form a small tuft, up to 60cm high.
Grows widely in the sandplains, wheatbelts, and Jarrah forests of the SW.