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Hoveas

31/5/2016

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PictureHovea in the dew
 Purple Hovea flowers are appearing on gravelly soils. They are the earliest of the pea flower Fabiaceae family. There are 3 species in Foxes Lair, which differ in their leaf shape and tend to be in different areas.
​Purple seems to be a poor colour to attract insects, but unlike humans, insects can see ultraviolet light, so what looks purple to us appears gleaming white to an insect. 

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Hovea chorizemafolia Holly leaved hovea
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Hovea trisperma
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Hovea pungens Devils pins
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Rare white devils pins variant
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Tent spider Cryptophera hirta

23/5/2016

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PictureWebs in sedges at Railway Dam

Greetings fellow Foxies,
 Tent web spiders belong to the orb weaver family Araneidae, but do not produce typical vertical circular orb webs. They have non sticky horizontal webs, with a cone shaped arrangement of silken threads above that contains a central silky mass that is used as a retreat, nursery and rubbish dump.
Webs are common in sedges and low  shrubs on open country, and are easily seen on dewy mornings
The spider approaches its prey from the underside of the web, and cuts out the piece of web containing its prey to feed.

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Spider waiting below web base
These spiders also share their webs with tiny kleptoparasite spiders.
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Typical web
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Adult female
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Orb weaver abdomen is much larger than the cephalothorax
A few months ago I noticed that the central silky refuge contained bright green spots, and took one home for closer examination. It was mainly a spiderling nursery with 3 separate egg sacs under a very tough silk roof. The green spots are algal colonies (growing on meal remains?). When I slightly opened one of the egg sacs I was greeted by a mass of  shed exoskeletons and spiderlings that rushed to repair the gap.
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Central retreat
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Nursery entrance and protective cap
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Witches (Witch's) Broom

2/5/2016

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Greetings fellow Foxies,
                                 
Witches broom or little leaf disease is a hormone-induced growth distortion of woody plants that only affects part of the plant.
 
In a prior Foxypress I discussed galls that differ from the strange and miniature witches broom shoots and leaves that are induced by insect spread viruses and phytoplasma (primitive bacteria), or fungal infection.
The image on the left shows a wandoo affected by witch's broom near the Marri picnic area.

Fasciation  is an associated disorder that causes strange strap-like flattening of growing points and flowers. Images below are on canola and an isopogon.
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3 Below are images of witches broom  caused by A rust fungus Ceratacoma jacksoniae that affects a range of pea flowers, also causes a type of witches broom. Images below show an infection on stinkwood (Jacksonia epiphyllum). The strange red growths contain tiny reddish fruiting rods that are quite different from the powdery pustules that occur on our crops.
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witches broom on stinkwood
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strange growths containing the fruiting bodies
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rod-like fruiting bodies
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    Doug Sawkins is a friend of Foxes Lair 

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