The devastating 2022 wildfire, which started near North Yiiliminning Nature Reserve has had an interesting consequence. In spring 2023 I discovered two very showy  native plants in burnt areas, which had not been recorded in the area.
Alyogyne huegelii and Solanum symonii are both recorded in Florabase as mainly coastal species.
How can this be?
In my opinion it is a by product of plant type, soil type, fragmented natural vegetation and changed fire management.

• Both species are fire ephemerals, which only live for 6  to 8 years, and need fire for seed to germinate.
• Both occur here on sloping heavy red soil from mafic (dolerite) rocks, which usually occurs as lines from cracks in basement granite rock. These soils are less common in our reserves, because they are good farming soils.
• Scattered wheatbelt reserves are not actively managed. Ockley and Birdwhistle reserves had not been burnt for decades

Alyogyne huegelii (Wheatbelt Hibiscus) is presently a dense understorey on a mafic loam slope in Ockley Nature Reserve. I clearly recall visiting this spot before the fire and taking a photo, which I later deleted because it was an unattractive view of scattered mallees on bark strewn ground with almost no understorey. It is now a dense mass of Alyogyne and other shrubs - Oh I wish I had kept that before fire image!

I also found several flowering Goodenia etheira plants on lateritic sand soil at Ockley Nature Reserve. This downy small flowered plant is only recorded further north in the Central Wheatbelt. I wonder how many other 'new discoveries' may be in the burnt area?

On light textured soils the main fire ephemerals have been Gyrostemon subnudis and Kennedia prostrata, which have emerged in profusion at Birdwhistle Rock.

The name 'Velvet Bush' comes from a dense cover of short hairs on foliage and flowers.  They are commonly called paper flowers because of the papery sepals surrounding the small flowers.
Characteristics are

• Small to medium shrubs.
• Flowers and foliage are generally covered with stellate (star shaped) hairs, which can give them a furry or prickly appearance.
• Mostly pink/purple flowers composed of coloured sepals; (petals are tiny or absent.)
•  Flowers lack nectar, and are  buzz pollinated by generalist native bees, which feed on pollen released from stamens that form a column surrounding the style. 
• Dry fruit, which release seeds.

​Orriginally in the Sterculariaceae family, they have been amalgamated with other former families by taxonomists into a large Malvaceae family using genetic analysis. As an amateur I am confused. Florabase, has dual identification for these genera.
Top of page -Malvaceae / genus (Thomasia, Guichenotia, Lasiopetalum) 
Below  Family Sterculariaceae (Subfamily Byttnerioideae), Tribe Lasiopetalae.

​To the average person Thomasia and Guichenotia species are very similar. 
​
Thomasia
​The most common species in this area are Thomasia foliosa and Thomasia macrocalyx. They both have small pink flowers composed of sepals with a single midrib, which are joined about halfway up to form a corolla tube. Although not showy, the flowers have a delicate interior.  They flower in June-July.

Thomasia macrocalyx is a tough hairy shrub with 1cm flowers, which I see in granite or dolerite rock soil. There are no petals, only pink sepals surrounded by green bracts. The smooth ovary is enclosed by large longish dark heart-shaped stamens, which open at the top. When native bees fold over the flower tip and buzz their wings, powdery pollen is sucked up through pores at the end of the stamens and lodge into the bee's body hair, and the flower stigma is fertilised by pollen on the bee from other flowers.

Guichenotia have have narrower leaves and several ribs in the calyx, but the difference is subtle. Luckily the two species in the Narrogin area, G. macrantha and G. micrantha which occur on sandier soils are very similar. The exterior of the sepals have  dark coloured hairs, which show up as a star shape when taking an photo of the flower with the sun behind it. Makes a great image.

Lasiopetalum
Thid genus can easily be distinguished from Thomasia and Guichenotia by the sepals, which lacks ribs and are split almost down to the base. I found Lasiopetalum microcardium at Harrismith Nature Reserve.

Now a few Red Herrings
​
Cyanostegia lanceolata is in the Malvaceae family, but has both petals and sepals and isn't hairy. But they do have light patterned , light coloured sepals, when the ring of dark purple petals  I have also been fooled by the petals, particularly when they are folded as being dark Malvaceae anthers. 
It flowers in September on gravelly soil and has stunning flowers, which glow from a distance with the sun behind them.  

Halgania anagalloides in the Boraginaceae family also has small  flowers with a calyx, blue petals, and a protruding ring of buzz pollinated anthers, which is also shared with Solanaceae (tomato) flowers. it is smallish shrub.

More information on identication
Seednotes 

Comesperma is an Australian genus (mainly in WA), which belongs to the Polygalaceae  (Milkwort) family that is widespread in other countries. The name Comesperma means 'hairy seed", which  relates to the seeds bearing tufts of hair. They are climbers or small wiry shrubs (that are often grazed by kangaroos). I am intrigued by their small 'upside down pea' flowers: an evolutionary adaption to attract native bees that pollinate adjoining pea plants.

On closer inspection, it is obvious that Comesperma flowers are very different from peas. 

When a bee lands on a pea flower, its legs part the wing petals to reveal the underlying stamens and pistil.
​There is little internet information on Comesperma pollination apart from them being pollinated by native bees, and that the flowers use secondary pollen presentation.
Comesperma flowers are quite strange. Two of the five sepals comprise the coloured 'wings' (like an upside-down Donkey orchid - another pea flower mimic), and the petals form a pouch-like 'keel' enclosing the stamens and pistil) with two upright  petals at the end.

On close inspection the story gets even stranger. 
White UV fluorescent patterns lead the pollinator to a small hole between the keel and outer petals. What could be inside?

It was no mean effort cutting into the tiny keel without destroying its contents, so the following images are a bit ragged.
First Comesperma scoparia.
The style appears to grow up in a curve, pushing the cup-shaped stigma into anthers which are crowded at the top of the keel. This loads pollen into the cup shaped stigma ready for contact with a pollinator's tongue which presumably is poked into the entrance. The last image shows that the style had straightened out during dissection. Blowed if I know, but perhaps the style is held under tension inside the keel. Could it poke out after contact with the insect's tongue? The active part of the stigma is a patch on the side of the style underneath the stigma cup.

My attempt as dissecting Comesperma volubile shows that the stamens are attached as a band to the interior of the keel.
My next challenge is to see them being pollinated.

​Curious little plants!

False Boronia, Lysiandra calycina (fomerly Phyllanthus calycinus) is an unobtrusive little plant with an interesting story. Found on sandy gravel soils in Narrogin, it belongs to the family Phyllanthaceae, which  mostly occurs in subtropical areas. The plant has soft green leaves and white flowers with pinkish green shades, which dangle down from the stem on long  flower stalks (pedicels). Flowers have no petals. The apparent petals are sepals, hence the name Leaf Flower. 

​Now for the interesting part

Each plant has male and female flowers (monoecious). Females flowers are larger and intermixed with more numerous male flowers.

​I have never seen any pollinators approach the flowers. This is probably because the flowers have no scent, but they do have large nectar glands at the base of each flower.

Other Phyllanthaceae species are pollinated by insects which partially parasitise them.
One pollinator is a moth which fed on nectar, transmitted pollen to the stigma and laid an egg. When the grub hatched it burrowed down the style to the ovary, ate ovules and pupated to complete its life cycle. As the moth left some ovules, to develop seeds, This is a win win for plant and moth. It also occurs in Boronias.
For other species a tiny gall midge fed on nectar at the spongy floral disc of male flowers and laid eggs in male flower buds, picking up pollen and contacting the styles of nearby female flowers in the process. Infested buds developed into sterile galls, within which midge larvae completed their development. 

​Nature is amazing!

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.