Greetings fellow Foxies,
Candy Block is a little known outlier of Dryandra Woodland on the Narrogin-Wandering Road near the turnoff to Cuballing. It is a great place to visit in the growing season to see some great flowers and interesting scenery. The whole area is underlain by really ancient (2.8 billion years!) granitic rocks that determine the pattern of ridges, waterways and present day soils. Compare this with much of the northern hemisphere that has lots of sedimentary rocks and was scoured by glaciers only 10,000 years ago.
Candy Block has more dramatic slopes and breakaways and gullies and more variable soils than the main block, that reflect variations in the underlying rock. In particular more resistant laterites on NW-SE dolerite dykes have remained while surrounding soils eroded to form dramatic mesas with steep gullies that makes for a great walking trail.
Thicker red lines show good driving tracks to enjoy the reserve. Please enter by the northern entrance as cars may slide and collide with oncoming vehicles while getting a run-up to tackle a blind steep loose gravel  ascent on the southern entrance.
Note that the narrow red lines are fire access tracks that may be rough, boggy or blocked by fallen trees.

The 1.5km Kwongan Trail is an easy walk through a yellow sand wildflower hotspot and other bush that includes attractive marri/ wandoo woodland and a powderbark/ wandoo spot containing Frog Greenhood, Beard, and Blue Sun orchids in mid/late October..

The yellow sand patch is a kwongan wildflower hotspot that reaches its peak in September to November.
The slideshow below gives a snapshot of this remarkable reserve.
Click here for blog on the lovely stages of development of Petrophile circinata and Isopogon villosa
Spring orchids are less common. Cowslip orchids are widespread, greenhood, jug, snail greenhood, donkey, blue china and fringed mantis orchids occur in places in sheoak woodland.
 
Sections of Candy Block are baited monthly to control foxes and feral cats. If you discover a “sausage” style bait on the ground please do not touch, remove or disturb it. Pets are not permitted and all pets are likely to be highly susceptible if taking a bait.

Greetings fellow Foxies,

I found these plants on an unusual patch of yellow sand in Dryandra Woodland Candy Block that has Drummond’s Mallee and a large number of shrubs. In August I noted a low compact plant with lovely foliage that I called “carrot plant” while waiting for it to flower. Flowers in late October revealed it to be an uncommon species, Petrophile circinata. Circinate means curled around itself, presumably referring to the whorled leaf arrangement. Images below show the plant and flower.
As this species was coming into flower I noticed that there were a few very similar plants that had beautiful hairy red growth appearing on what I thought were dead flower stalks.
Gadzooks! The local experts were confounded until the growth expanded into the flower of slightly later flowering Isopogon villosus (villous means hairy with long soft hairs). The flowers emerge from thickened scaly clumps of old growth.
To my uneducated eye, vegetative growth of both species is similar, but Petrophile circinata leaves are a slightly darker green and leaf petioles have a distinctive linear fold in the petiole stem.
I usually have no problem distinguishing Isopogons (smooth fruiting nut) from Petrophiles (scaly nut), but these squat species are a real challenge. After a fair bit of excavation in the prickly growth I eventually found a rather confusing nut on the stem below the flowering clump.
The slideshow below follows both species as they flower.

Last year, visiting American geologist Ray Grant noticed strange gravels that resembled South Australian fossils in the main street of Mukinbudin. The S.A. fossils called ‘clogs’ are calcified pupae cases of Leptopius species weevils (stone pigs).
Fossils have also been reported at Gracetown and the Pinnacles.
Leptopius larvae are grubs that feed on acacia roots in sand dunes before compressing an space in the soil and secreting liquid to make a case in which to pupate. After pupation the adult weevil makes a hole in the pupal case and digs its way to the surface. Over time the residual cases became cemented by a lime in the soil water.
Mukinbudin specimens are similar but chunkier and harder, and tend to have the exit hole at the end rather than the side.
I found a paper on fossilised Leptopius pupal cases in Weipa bauxite that look like those at Mukinbudin.

Greetings fellow Foxies,
The peak of the flowering season has past and the drive-snap crowd has departed, but for observant nature lover there is beauty in post-flowering new plant growth. Proteaceae are particularly intriguing with a myriad of shapes and colours and woolly or hairy growth. These plants are superbly adapted to thrive in the lateritic soils that they create.
Bright coloured new growth is an adaptation called delayed greening, which is a strategy to make new growth less attractive to grazing animals.
I am so lucky to be able to observe the annual cycle of life- death- rebirth of the plants and animals in Foxes Lair. It provides a reality check in the increasingly chaotic outside world.