Even the small and insignificant have their moment in Foxypress. I have also been described as small, but hopefully not insignificant :}
​Recently I noticed shrubs with what I thought were silvery fluffy flowers in open woodland opposite the Nomans Lake Hall, and I had great trouble identifying them.
The reason is that I saw masses of winged seeds, which are not shown in ID guides and the flowers are incredibly small.   
Spyridium is an Australian genus in the Rhamnaceae family, which is noted for having tiny flowers. Spyridiums are known as basket flowers because their flowers are clustered inside cup-like bracts.

​To flower in autumn on dense gravel soil Spyridium microcephalum has to be a tough plant, hence the woolly flowering stems and leaves, and tiny flowers.
Each flower has a ring of white feathery sepals enclosing a tubular corolla (petal tube). Anthers are clustered at the end of the tube, and a lobed stigma pokes out (probably after the anthers have died to prevent self pollination

​After pollination the corolla tube falls out and the sepal ring grows out like a badminton shuttlecock with the seeds enclosed at its base. It then flies away in the wind leaving the expanded 'basket' bracts, which look like a flower to the unwary.
What an amazing little plant! I wonder what tiny insect pollinates them?

Shakespeare wrote 'What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty....'
Blah blah one doesn't have to look far to see that as utter rubbish, but to his credit Hamlet's speech moves on to our flawed reality.
If only Shakespeare was around to praise Lobelia gibbosa Tall Lobelia, which is a true wonder of nature.

Lobelia gibbosa is a spindly annual herb about 15cm tall with a thickened stem and scale leaves, which flowers now amongst leaf litter on Marri open forest sands and sandy gravels. It is an amazing achievement for an annual to flower, ensure that it is pollinated, and provide seeds for the next season in midsummer.
​Single flowers open one at a time. The exquisite little blue and white flowers are difficult for humans to see, but the plant has evolved ingenious measures to ensure pollination by  insects
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Here are the plants' secrets

Root System - this is mind blowing!
For more information see page 257 of this book.
Lobelia gibbosa roots form a symbiotic relationship relationship with a fungus, which is called an ericoid mycorrhiza (mainly found in in the Ericaceae shrub family on poor sand and gravel soils.) Like many orchids, germinating Lobelia seeds won't develop without mycorrhizal fungi. Ericoid mycorrhizas generally develop at 15 to 60  cms below the soil surface.
Somehow the tiny Lobelia seeds manage to get 15 to 25cm below the surface, germinate, and form a clump of thick mycorrizhal roots (called coralloid roots) that are fed by the fungus through winter and early spring. The fungus could even be transferring nutrients to the Lobelia from other plants via mycorrhizas. This provides nutrient and water storage for the Lobelia, which sends up a bean like shoot after a month to begin the normal leaf formation, growth and flowering processes.

Plant structure
When the soil dries the plant acts like a succulent using stored water in the root system and thickened stem, which gradually dries up from the base. 

​Colour
Vertebrates with red/blue/green vision can't easily distinguish small pale blue and white flowers from light brown leaf litter.
Insects can't see red and white, poorly see yellow and brown, but have good green and blue vision. A big addition is ultraviolet (UV) and insects see the colours differently depending on whether the plant tissue reflects or absorbs UV light. For an insect, blue flowers really stand out from brownish leaf litter.

Pattern
Insect eyes readily detect movement, and they are attracted to irregular edged objects that are symmetrical. Think of the rounded symmetry of daisy flowers and bilateral (right/left) symmetry of pea ... and Lobelia flowers.
A flower's reproductive parts the pistil and stamens, absorb UV light to protect them from damage, and look dark to an insect. Many flowers have (insect vision) dark bullseye spots at their centre and streaks resembling stamens to lead insects into the flower.

Precise Pollination
To ensure that each insect visit results in pollen transfer Lobelias use a sneaky mechanism called secondary pollen presentation.
The most common flower structure shown in the diagram (courtesy madaboutscience.com.au) has separate male and female parts with stamens that usually surround the female pistil. There is great variation depending on the plant species and type of pollinator.
If you look at the Lobelia flower, these are absent, but are simulated by white patterns.

A side view of the flower reveals the secret.
Five petals are fused into three lobes to make a tube for the insect to enter. I suspect that Lobelias lack sufficent stored moisture to produce nectar but rely on visual mimicry as do most orchids.
Stamens are united to form a tube containing the pistil, which pokes through the upper lobes and ends at the upturned ends. Anthers surrounding the inside of the tube at the (brown marked) end release pollen into it. The style slowly elongates up the stamen tube until its thickened  end (stigma) grows through the anther ring and like a piston, pushes a plug of pollen out to the hairy tip.
Insects pushing into the flower lift and part the upper petal lobes to reveal the pollen-covered stamen tube tip, which smears pollen on to the insect's back. The slow piston action enable the flower to recharge the tip for several insect visits.

Some days later when remaining pollen has died, the style emerges from the stamen tube into the flower allowing the stigma to unfold and reveal its inner receptive surface. As an insect enters the flower pollen from its back brushes on to the lobes and pollinates the flower.

Postscript
Later I found a group of roosting male blue banded bees in the vicinity, and read that they prefer blue flowers.

There are 29 Fabiaceae species in Foxes Lair and many others in the district. 
They all have five petals whose shape has evolved specifically for pollination by native bees.

• The large top petal called a banner usually has a differently coloured 'bullseye patch' at its base, which attracts the bee to a nectar gland is. Because bees can see ultraviolet light, the bullseye patch stands out even more for them than for us. For more information see this paper.

• ​Below this, two sideways- aligned petals called wings project out as a landing point, and cover the stamens and pistil.
• Under the stamens and pistil is the keel, which consists of two petals, joined to form a boat - shaped base to stop insects getting at them for below.

This series of images shows the flower parts of a Daviesia as it was progessively dissected

There is a range of flower sizes, which would fit a number of pollinators, but they are all designed for the bee to land on the flower from the front. The bee's claws push the wings down  and the bee's abdomen contacts the pistil and stamens. Megachile bees have furry tummies, which then collect  pollen.
European honey bees don't play by the rules. They often steal nectar from the side of the flower. I recently saw honey bees chewing into Daviesia flowers before they had opened. The bees destroyed flowers and ate the pollen. With their overwhelming numbers, they reduce pollination and native bee numbers.

Kennedia prostrata (Running Postman) is an oddity, and one of the first plants to recolonise in the season following a bushfire.
The plant can form cluster roots  enables it to extract phosphorus from organic souces such as charcoal.
The large red flower is designed for bird pollination, presumably because birds colonise burnt areas before insects. Unlike other pea flowers,the wings don't cover the keel allowing a honeyeater to accurately place its beak  to get nectar and pollinate the flower.

Here are some other local Fabeaceae.

Wire-Leaf Mistletoe Amyema preissii has dense bunches of bright orange-red flowers which produces copious amounts of nectar, but no perfume (that I could detect) - a great example of bird pollinating flowers. However, I was perplexed by flower peculiarities.

• Stamens and pistil project out to touch a bird’s head as it drinks nectar, but petals are open right down to the ovary. This allows short-tongued insects like ants, flies, and honeybees to steal nectar without pollinating the flower.
• Flowers were open or closed with very few in between.
• In early morning nectar leaked out of closed flowers and collected on the bulbous end, but there was no sign of nectar on anthers or pistil of open flowers.

Intrigued, I revisited a flowering mistletoe for several days and dissected flowers at varying stages. It was a great learning experience!

The closed downward hanging flower consists of five tepals which are fused into a long tube with a bulbous end. The anthers and stigma are packed so tightly at the end that they resist entry from nectar flowing down from the flower base.
When the flower is ready to open, nectar flows down the inside, escapes from joins between tepals on the side, and coats the end. There were lots of bees on open flowers but they avoided the nectar on unopened flowers. Didn't like sticky claws?
When I dissected closed flowers I could see that stamens and anthers form a straight line from the centre of the tepal, but the end of the tepal that encloses them is curved. This creates a spring mechanism, which is held in place by stronger join at the end of the tepal.
Perhaps, when honeyeaters lick nectar off the flower end, the motion causes the flower to spring open so the bird can pollinate it.

About 10% of the flowers remained closed apart from a tiny dark dot on the outside, which marked the point where a moth or other insect laid an egg. Inside was a 3mm translucent grub, which ate the flower's reproductive parts then formed a dark brown pupa.

Honey bees were at the flowers from dawn to dusk with the occasional Campanotis chalceus ant. They were able to steal nectar without contacting anthers and stigma, but pollination occurred when bees collected pollen from the anthers. After seeing a bee eating pollen I learnt that honey bees have 2 stomachs: One for eating pollen and nectar for energy,and the other for storing honey for the hive.

At late afternoons a pair of large Australian Hornets buzzed in regularly to feed, and just once a Silky Azure butterfly. This was a great find as they are very rare in this district. The caterpillar larvae eat  flower buds, flowers, leaves and soft stem parts of the mistletoe, but are particularly fond of the flower buds.

I decided to check out bush at Thomas Hogg Oval where Jam Wattles Acacia acuminata were infested with mistletoe (only occasional occurrence in Foxes Lair). This is typical of isolated small areas of bush. Apparently possums love eating mistletoe, particularly the flowers. As possums can't survive fox and cat predation in small areas with few trees, mistletoe gets out of control. There were lots of honeyeaters but fewer bees. Many mistletoes were old and dying back. Flowers on some were dying from extensive  infestation of giant scales, which were being attended by aggressive meat ants.
Sadly an unbalanced ecosystem. 

Further information Mistletoe blog

Sedges and rushes  are not the most exciting plants in our bush, but they are an important part. These plants protect the soil from erosion and are important habitat plants for insects, spiders, larger animals, and birds. They become obvious on misty mornings when each one becomes a dewy spider palace. Before European settlement, these plants were habitat and food for numerous emus, small rodents and marsupials, which are locally extinct. Rushes and sedges are still important habitat in wetlands. Western Grey Kangaroos and even foxes nibble sedge leaves.

​I am writing this blog for myself because descriptions and common names for this group are confusing.

A commonly used rhyme to distinguish between grasses, sedges, and rushes is.
“Sedges (Cyperaceae) have edges, rushes (Juncaceae)  are round, grasses (Poaceae) have knee joints all the way to the ground”.
This rhyme is not useful in WA.

Does it matter if you can't tell the difference? Occasionally yes when weeds are involved. A recent example was a decision to replace Bull Rushes in Narrogin Creek with Common Reed Phragmites Australis, which is an introduced weed. Phragmites is certainly impressive and probably isn’t a problem there apart from blocking the creek, but it kills adjoining plants and is an aggressive weed in coastal wetlands.

Here are my local rules of thumb.

Grasses (Poaceae), sedges (Cyperaceae), rushes (Juncaceae) and southern rushes (Anarthriaceae and Restionaceae) are all wind pollinated monocotyledons, which grow as annuals or clumping perennials. Perennial plants spread by horizontal underground roots called rhizomes.
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There are lots of native and introduced grasses around, which can be easily identified  by their hollow stems and stem joints called nodes.

​Sedges and rushes don’t have nodes, usually have solid pithy stems, and their leaves arise from a rhizome near the ground. Wetland species commonly called rushes may actually be sedges or grasses. For example, Bull Rush or Cumbungi / Typha species are wetland grasses. Cumbungi is a bush tucker plant, which I decided to taste recently in the spirit of citizen science. Chewing a peeled rhizome was less than successful, so I cooked some in the microwave. Result: Texture = rope, taste = blah! Perhaps I should have collected my sample in the growing season and not from a roadside ditch. When I first came to Narrogin, Cumbungi groves formed wonderful bird nesting areas in Railway Dam. Our drying climate has almost eliminated them now.

Locally, the classic round, smooth-leaved rushes are mostly weeds. Toad Rush  Juncus bufonius is a tiny annual weed which was a problem in wet areas in crops before no-till farming.
Spiny Rush Juncus acutus is an introduced spiny weed, which infests our damp waterways and dams. Despite this it is useful for reducing erosion in wet salty areas, and as wildlife habitat.
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​Sedges may have flat or angled leaves (‘edges”) or not. I have noticed that flat-leaved species tend to be larger plants, which occur more often in winter wet/summer dry areas on slopes and flats. Flowers are often surrounded by spiky bracts and each produces a single small nut.

Schoenus species are small narrow-leaved sedges. Ground-hugging Schoenus calcaratum would be a delightful addition to the native garden.

A special group In southwestern WA is called southern rushes. Unlike sedges and rushes, they are dioecious (have male and female plants). There are two families, Anarthriaceae (mainly near to the coast), and (local) Restionaceae.
Restionaceae are funky mat-like plants with round green to grey-green stems (culms),and brownish scale leaves, which often occur in patches in open kwongan or woodland. Being very tough plants which can withstand short-term waterlogging then drought, they are often found on open gravel, sand,or sand over clay.
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Lepidobolus species have curly snake-like culms

Desmocladus species have branched culms and female plants with leaf sheaths that sprout clusters of short stalks each with a single flower, which make them look like branched leaves.