Wildflowers and flowering trees

A carpet of wildflowers in the Gawler Ranges SA.
Please click on all photos to enbiggen

What better way to begin a post about Australia's beautiful wildflowers and flowering trees
than with this image of two of the ladies of my life surrounded by daisies.
(the ladies are my ex wife Julie and my Grand daughter Stacey, now a 25 year old)


The photos on the left are all of Banksia flowers,
there are more than 60 varieties of Banksia in Australia, they were named after Sir Joseph Banks who was a botanist who accompanied Sir James Cook on his voyage of discovery in 1770




Pictured on the right is the Sturt Desert Pea is the State floral emblem of SA, it thrives in the harsh semi arid zones that produce this beautiful flower in great numbers after a cold winter followed by good spring rains.












Pictured on the right is the much rarer white Sturt Desert Pea








Pictured on the right is the Kangaroo Paw one of the many wildflowers found only in the sandy soils of WA.




















Pictured on the right is another rarer variety, this time the Black Kangaroo Paw










Pictured on the right is the seedpod
(gum-nut) of a Eucalyptus (gum tree)
this giant seed pod measures 4.5
inches across and opens to display a
brilliant red flower.









As you can see the flowers of the Banksia can be quite spectacular, this has been only a sample of their beauty.




On the right;
The brilliant red flowers of a flowering gum, unlike the giant flower above this one shows the flowers of a cluster of gum nuts numbering perhaps 25 or 30 each of which has burst into bloom to release its fertilized seeds





Just a sample of the thousands of spectacular blooms that colour our world in springtime
perhaps surprisingly the harsh climate and sandy soils of WA produce the most prolific
examples, the east coast and tropics also have a lot to offer though.