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"Snugglepot and Cuddlepie", banksia, behind Bangello Beach, gumnuts, moss, nodding greenhood, Pterostylis nutans, wattle
Last week, I visited my coincidentally Polish accountant to sort out my tax and ask financial questions from the abyss of my financial ignorance. After such an encounter, I usually find an unwalked beach and explore with a picnic lunch. This time it was high tide, and I don’t walk on beaches at high tide.
So I stopped at a sandy track, guarded by frantically flowering wattle, and stumbled across six prolific colonies of greenhood orchids: Pterostylis nutans I think. They were hiding amongst bracken just off the track, heads demurely facing the ground. In each colony, I counted at least 30 plants. If I saw six colonies I reckon there’d be many more: if I counted 30 plants it would have to be a conservative estimate.
But the orchids weren’t the only treasures. There was moss: soft spring green; spiky, star-like pinky-red and green; flowers (are they flowers?) wavering on the end of thin red stalks.
Mosses
Then there were the many faces of banksias: flower; seed pods opened; hairy dead flowers; dead flowers broken open into red; stippled bark, some showing signs of fire; and closed seed pods. Gumnuts, round urns, littered the ground wherever there were eucalypts.
May Gibbs, in her children’s book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, transformed banksia cones into villians, the Big Bad Banksiamen, and gumnuts into the characters of the title, a pair of gumnut babies. My leather bound copy was a gift from J on our third wedding anniversary, a memento of my childhood pleasure in this Australian classic.
Banksias
Eucalypt gumnuts
Everywhere was the brightness of wattle, which has to be called golden, and which is one of the signatures of home for me.
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More treasure! 🙂 🙂 Love that horizontal leaf with the shadow!
I’d like to think me and Snugglepot go back a long way but alas my childhood was not thus enhanced 😦
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Was your childhood enhanced by an English equivalent? And thank you for noticing the shadow of the orchid on the leaf. I’d like an apple pie please.
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Half-eaten apple pie any good to you? I gave the smaller one to Dad 🙂
I was very much a Winnie the Pooh child, and then growing up I was wild about the Famous 5. I’m sure I was George in another life! And the Chalet School stories (a bit more genteel 🙂 ). But when my daughter was small I fell hook, line and sinker for Bagpuss! 🙂 What an intellectual creature I am!
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Half-eaten apple pie would be perfect. I was more like Anne, I fear. I watched ‘Winnie the Pooh’ with TRT a few weeks ago and really liked it. Read the Chalet School books too – all so English! But I also had ‘The little bush maid’ series which was set on a property in Australia in the early 20th century. Who cares about intellect when it comes to loving? I don’t know Bagpuss.
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I’m cheating a bit because this is a video. The books were pop-ups. Your little ones might like this 🙂
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I love walking in the bush with you Meg. You find a veritable treasure trove. Those orchids are so dainty and maybe because your eyes were tuned into the small and delicate mosses they picked out the tiny orchids too. Jack introduced me to May Gibbs and her characters.
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A good theory about the mosses, Pauline, but I spotted the orchids first. You might be interested in
https://open.abc.net.au/explore/7501
if I haven’t linked to it before. It talks about my orchid spotting, paying due tribute to J’s eyes, although I found these all by myself.
I should be a bit more scientific in my plant photography. The greenhoods weren’t so tiny as all that: flowers about the size of a substantial thumbnail. My orchid bible says “A central scape bears a single nodding hooded flower, to 2.5 cm long.” I shall henceforth stash a small ruler in my camera kit.
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Thanks for that link Meg, it is amazing, I’ve just spent time looking around and being fascinated. The time lapse of sunrise/sunset in my area is inspiring, and so is the silk painting. I must get out for morning and evening shots again… (now I know where you found the great whale image)
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You do have sharp eyes. I would never have seen those orchids. And it goes to show that beauty is all around us if we look hard enough. I love the golden wattle, though wattle trees imported into South Africa became a nuisance and difficult to eradicate. I know there are many different varieties, but this one was a pest. And I like the name of that children’s book. What age group is it for? I love to buy ‘foreign’ or local story books for my grandchildren so they get a taste of other places.
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I’m guessing by the dates of the publication that these books are out of print now. Still if I get to Sydney again I might try to visit her house ‘Nutcote’, it looks interesting.
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They’re not out of print, but maybe quite dated, if that matters.
https://shop.abc.net.au/products/snugglepot-and-cuddlepie-1
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Thanks. I’ll check it out.
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You can some times find a copy in the op shops over here Jude. Jack found one for the Grand children a few years ago. They are classics for children. Jack grew up with them.
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My brother told me the other night that a particular wattle (Cootamundra, I think) is classified as a pest around Canberra. My eyes were expectant, and lucky – and therefore saw.
Age group? 8+ according to the site below.
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You certainly have sharp eyesand are very attuned to the bush. I enjoyed tagging along with you.
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I’m glad of your company. As for sharp eyes, it surprises me that once I’ve seen one orchid, they pop up everywhere: that attunement of attention is mysterious, and probably not limited to orchids. In fact there’s probably a theory of perception to explain it.
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Yes, that’s true. Its like you have to tune in to seeing certain ways.
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I’d like to think I would have noticed those tiny orchids but have my doubts, how precious they are. The first gum nut photos looks like tiny open mouth creatures. Isn’t it amazing what can be seen if we just look properly?
A lovely link as well Meg, the May Gibbs image is charming 🙂
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I think those orchids were stalking me! I turned round from looking at the horizontal layers of grass, swamp, eucalypts, sky, and there they were. Although I must admit I thought as I set out, “Hmmm. Sandy track. I remember finding duck orchids along a track like this.”
The lovely soft leather binding of my copy of May Gibbs looked very inviting to my eldest daughter, then two, and she made her mark with a biro. That’s history. Now I’m wondering where the book is.
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