There are quite a few wildflowers you can see as you walk around Moorunde. Most are quite small, but that does not detract from their beauty when viewed at close range.

One of the smallest is a yellow everlasting daisy no more than 1½” high when in flower. There is a bluebell which grows in patches thick enough to show the blue from a distance. These two are among the annuals, but it is on the perennial shrubs that we see most of the flowers.

There are three eremophilas – or emu bushes – Eremophila scoparia which is blue, E. glabra – red, and E. longifolia – dark pink. I have heard there is another one as well.

In the springtime yellow flowers predominate – wattles and cassias mainly.

When the seed pods of the native hop bushes ripen in the summer to red they make a fine show.

Our greatest find so far is a greenhood orchid – Pterostylis biseta – growing in an open area where in the past sheep must have grazed. As the plants grow undisturbed now there should be better displays of flowers as time goes on.

Berna Clements
Natural History, February 1971

 

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