​Greetings fellow Foxies,
Recently I was delighted to find a third Wurmbea lily in the Narrogin area, the delightful Wurmbea drummondii. Wurmbeas are associated with unrequited love, medicine, aromas and of course, sex. They flower in June-July. 
Wurmbeas (common name ‘nancies’ are named a after a German aristocratic botanist named Friedrich von Wurmb (1742-1781). Friedrich and his brother fell in love with the same woman until he generously Joined the Dutch East India Company in Indonesia and studied palms and orangutans. I wonder whether the woman’s name was Nancy, or she had any say in the matter?
The genus Wurmbea is in the family Colchicaceae (a folk remedy for rheumatism) that contains the alkaloid colchicine. Gout-riddled red wine drinkers rejoice. Before you graze, it has also been implicated in livestock deaths.

​The tiny Wurmbea flowers have a superior (above flower base) ovary and waxy tepals (combined petal/ sepal). The stamens lean outwards from the ovary until the anther is near the middle of each tepal: I wonder why, and for which insect? As it turns out, each tepal has a nectar secreting spot (nectary) on the top near the anthers, which would attract insects to them. Perhaps there is another attractant that would then draw the insect to the central ovary and pistil.
I think that flies are main pollinators. Apparently some wurmbeas emit an odour to attract coprophagous (poo-loving) flies. However, I asked my sensitive sniffer wife to smell Wurmbea tenella flowers and she reported a sweet aroma.

​Wurmbeas are the LGBTI equivalent of us in the plant world.
Some species are straight with normal flowers containing both male (anthers) and female (pistil and ovary) parts.
​An example, Wurmbea sinora occurs uncommonly on gravelly soil in Foxes Lair.
​Some species have male and female plants (dioecious).
Stressed flowers produce less seed in a flower that has to maintain both male and female parts. In more stressful locations dioecious plants are more successful because each flower can put all its resources into male or female flowers. A good example is April-flowering dodonaea humifusa that sprawls over rocks in red clay on the Granite Walk.

​Beautiful but uncommon dioecious Wurmbea drummondii occurs on redder soils like gravelly loams on the Highbury and Three Mesas walks.
Andromonoecious plants have normal flowers as well as male flowers on youngest growth. Apparently, this occurs rarely in Wurmbea drummondii. Note that flowers tend to become redder with age.

Dainty Wurmbea tenella (Eight Nancy) is common on granitic soils. It differs from other species in having eight (sometimes more) tepals. If you look carefully you may find that flowers have variable or even no anthers. The images below show differences that I found in Foxes Lair.

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Burchardia is another genus in the Colchicaceae family in the district.The flowers look similar to Wurmbeas, but the plants are larger and do not contain colchicine. I tend to see them more on stream-side soils, particularly the stately Burchardia monantha. These pics are from Quinns reserve.

​Hello fellow Foxies,
Tiny (1cm) delightful blue Tall Lobelia Lobelia gibbosa flowers are out now. Each single stemmed plant has small, withered leaves on a fleshy stem with one to four pale blue striped flowers that are hard to spot, but is worth the search.
The larger Tufted Lobelia Lobelia rhombifolia (October/November) also has (deep) blue flowers that remind me of a fleur-de-lis. They are hardy annuals that only occur in ones or twos, mostly and sandy spots with little vegetation. I think they would flourish after a fire.

​Lobelias belong to the Campanulaceae family with two other late-spring annuals in Foxes Lair, Isotoma hypercrateriformis and Wahlenbergia gracilenta (rare here) that occur in the claypit area.

​World-wide the Campanulaceae family is known for large and showy flowers, but not in WA.
They share these distinctive features.

• Inferior (under the flower) ovary.
• They exude a nasty sticky white sap when cut.
• Instead of starch they store energy as inulin. Unlike starch, inulin is digested in the colon rather than in the stomach, and is very good for gut health. Before you harvest lobelias for the inulin, note that it may cause gaseous eruptions in the bowel department (a curse on Jerusalem artichokes!), and:-
• Some plants contain toxins. The common name for Isotoma hypercrateriformis is Woodbridge poison.
• Some plants like Lobelia gibbosa and Isotoma hypercrateriformis have fleshy stems that enable flower and seed formation to continue long after the leaves have died.
• Campanulaceae and Asteraceae (sunflower family) have a remarkable stigma and stamen arrangement that is described in the extract below from this web page.

 
Inside the flower, the five stamens are arranged closely together around the central female style and are often fused together, thus forming a little cylinder. When they are mature, the stamens release their pollen into the centre of the tube they form, where the pollen collects. The style will then grow longer, slowly pushing the mass of pollen out of the tube, where it then falls on the backs of bees that visit the flower for nectar. Once all the pollen is pushed out and the female style is mature, the tip will split open to reveal sticky surfaces where it can receive pollen from other flowers. In other words, the flower will not pollinate itself, because the pollen is released and pushed out of the way before it is ready to be pollinated.
After much crawling around on tick-infested ground I managed to photograph this arrangement in Lobelia gibbosa. From the flower base, the tube curves up through a split in the upper petals and down again to end where it will brush the back of insects entering the flower. 

​Upper petals have been removed from the images below to show the fused stamen tube.

​Greetings fellow Foxies
I have been sampling the tasty purple berries of Dianella revoluta/ Blueberry lily. It is bush tucker with an edible fleshy berry containing two small nutty seeds. Dianellas are called flax lilies (Noongar name is Mangard) because fibre from the stiff linear leaves makes a handy string or cord for binding. Noongars also crushed and ate the rhizomes.
When I googled Dianella plant I was surprised to see that nurseries have produced new cultivars for the garden.

Similar looking lilies that flower within a month or so of each other include:

• Stypandra glauca/Blind grass is a member of the grass lily genus with a similar looking flower. However, it is a toxic to introduced grazing animals, and the fruit is a dry capsule rather than a berry.
• Agrostocrinum scabrum/ Blue grass lily occcurs on gravels.It has a deep blue flower and a dry capsule rather than a berry
• Dichopogon callipes is an early summer flowering plant with a few small straight leaves on the stem and  delicate blue flowers. It is normally inconspicuous, but a delight to see in mornings when the sun is behind it.

Despite being called lilies, they are part of a group of varied monocotyledons that were apparently once in the family Liliaceae, but were regrouped by taxonomists, with some disputes (remember Dryandra/Banksia?).
No doubt forests have been felled for journal articles and careers have waxed and waned during the lily wars. I assume that microscopes and DNA analysis are the main weapons as  plants do not possess anal hairs. I digress.
From a layman’s view they are all monocotyledons (generally 3 petals, 3 sepals) with rhizomes and/or root tubers. All three plants are resprouters that can recover from fires using energy reserves stored in their roots.
Agrostocrinum, Dianella and Stypandra are in the Hemerocallidaceae family with other Foxes Lair genera Caesia,and Tricoryne.
Dichopogon is in the large Asparagaceae family, which includes all our orchids and (you guessed it) asparagus.

Bridal Creeper is a South African member of Asparagaceae and a weed in that is slowly increasing throughout Foxes Lair
It is an aggressive competitor due to

• A climbing and spreading growth habit
• Profuse berry production. I frequently find small bridal creeper plants at the base of trees in the bush, that have germinated from seeds that passed through birds.
• A huge ability to recover from adversity using root reserves. 90% of the plant occurs underground as a mat of rhizomes and root tubers. Control by cultivation and pulling has no effect.

This year I thought I would kill some plants in the arboretum using two applications of a glyphosate and metsulfuron (note meth heads this is not methamphetamine) mix. Very underwhelming result!
Images below show that sprayed plants had more shrivelled old (brown) root tubers but survived, produced (less) new season tubers and set seed. 
Like many pests and weeds, bridal creeper is relatively uncommon in its home country due to native diseases and pests that have evolved with the plant.
Unfortunately, Narrogin’s climate is too dry for the introduced bridal creeper rust to persist, and introduced mites are unlikely to have much impact on plants dispersed in the bush. It is going to be a long battle.

Greetings fellow Foxies,

One of my favourite Foxes Lair spots in early October is the Banksia Walk area around the town water tank. To get there drive up the track to the water tank from Williams Road. Around a walk trail connecting to the Banksia Walk are two lovely wildflowers. Weeping Dampiera sacculata is my favourite Dampiera. At this spot you can find a range of colour shades from intense blue to white.



 
There are also clumps of lovely velvet blue flowering Marianthus drummondianus plants. Today I was quite excited to find a pink-flowered version

​Look out for the beautiful Lilac Trigger Plant Stylidium amoenum on the Banksia Walk beside the green bench amongst the jarrah trees.