Red flowers in our wheatbelt come in a range of shapes and sizes, but they are nearly all pollinated by birds. Some red flowers also pollinated by marsupials such as the honey possum, but this fascinating article describes how the colour red looks more vivid to birds than to mammals and marsupials.
Worldwide indicators of a bird-pollinated plant are
• Bright red, white, (which most insects can’t see well) or yellow flowers.
•Tube-shaped flowers with abundant nectar at the base, and adjoining stamens and pistil projecting about 3 to 5cm out from the nectar source.
• Sturdy flowers that can support birds (exception hummingbirds)
• Little or no aroma, but lots of dilute nectar

​Here are local examples of tube shaped flowers from a range of genera.

Most bird-pollinated flowers are large, but there are exceptions like these red astrolomas (now Styphelia species) that provide nectar to very small honeyeaters like the Brown Honeyeater, and the Western Spinebill. Note the hairy flower entrance, which is designed to discourage nectar-stealing insects like ants. White-flowered members are often pollinated by insects like butterflies and moths that have with long feeding tubes. 

Bird pollination is particularly important in this area because there are so many flowering species, and which are often in specific locations or soil types. For example Eucalyptus caesia mallees occurs on separate granite outcrops. Birds suit these plants because they can carry pollen further, particularly after large bushfires.

Millions of years of relative stability have allowed the evolution from bee to bird-pollinated flowers. The process has led to variations from the applying to bird pollination in other parts of the world.
Bird-pollinated flowers here can have a range of shapes, be scented, and be located close to the ground. Genera such as Eucalyptus, Banksia, Hakea, and Grevillea may be pollinated by more than one animal as well as insects. 


Grevillea and Hakea flowers have superbly adapted long and curling styles, which deliver and accept pollen (using secondary plant pollination) on specific points of a honeyeater's head or beak. Some are highly scented which suggests alternative pollinators. A good example is beetle-pollinated Grevillea eryngioides at Harrismith Nature Reserve.

Insect pollinators become more important with smaller Grevillea/Hakea flowers. Plants are often very spiny,and flowers are strongly scented. A good example is Hakea lissocarpha which has profuse groups of flowers with short straight styles and a strong almost cloying aroma. In this Foxypress I describe the variety of insects and a honeyeater I observed on a plant one July.

Bird pollination is most common in  WA in brush-shaped flowers such as bottlebrushes and Calothamnus, which coat a bird with pollen when it lands and feeds, and bowl-shaped eucalypt flowers.

Most eucalypts are pollinated by birds, but the bowl shaped base provides access to a range of pollinators.The Purple Crowned Lorikeet uses its brush-tipped tongue to gather nectar from massed bunches of eucalypt flowers. Unfortunately I infrequently see them in our bush, and hope that the introduced Rainbow Lorikeet doesn't establish here. Honeyeaters and Western Silvereye are very common.

Note. Australian plants evolved in the absence of introduced European Honeybee which have advantages that enable them to strongly compete with native insects, birds and animals.They are a communal species fostered by humans, operate continuously, and are larger than most native bees. The damn things are everywhere!
A walk through the Narrogin Arboretum reveals a range of eucalypt flower adaptations, which have evolved to favour birds. Many flowers have white or yellow stigma and stamens, but the bud caps and flower cups are often red. Several red-flowering species also have white-flowering variants..

Other adaptations are drooping flowers, crowded stamens, and ball shaped flower clusters, which favour bird access rather than insects.

Other genera have only a few bird pollinated members such as the large-flowered fire ephemeral Kennedia Prostrata, which germinates profusely after fire then dies back to a few plants after 5 years or so. Bright red blooms against black ash attract birds which can fly the distance into large burnt areas.

The small Red Leschenaultia flower doesn't look typical for bird pollination, unlike the uncommon Lechenaultia tubiflora. Most other species use insects.

Exceptions?
There are a few that may cause confusion.
Drosera menziesii Pink Rainbow can have bright red flowers, but they are mostly pink to shiny magenta colours, which are highly UV reflective colours for insects.

​Ptilotus mangesii Pom Poms, and Ptilotus declinatus Curved Mullah Mullah. There are also magenta POm Pom versions that are very UV reflective, and they flower late in the season often against a yellow or brown background which insects see better.

In this area these beautiful wildflowers are shrubs that usually occur on sandy and gravelly soils and tend to flower in late Spring. Most have tubular flowers, and often have hairy/woolly vegetation and / or aromatic foliage.
The following clues indicate that flowers are superbly adapted for bee and fly pollination.

• Generally white, mauve, pink colours which suit their vision, often with darker spots to provide contrast
• Petals form a corolla tube  lined with stamens  that rub pollen on to an insect as it enters to get nectar
• The tube ends in two or 5 irregular lobes, and provide insects with landing pads and attracts their attention.
• Many flowers have tiny hooks or lobes on anthers that push pollen onto the insect.

For laymen like me identification can be a nightmare as there has been considerabe change and amalgamation over the years. In old books they have been divided over the decades into groups such as Labiatae, Laminaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Verbenaceae, and Chloanthaceae.
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I use the following rules of thumb to help me identify genera in this area

Prior LAMIACEAE (FOXGLOVE) FAMILY

Genus Microcorys - white and pale pink, tube shaped flowers with a helmet shaped upper corolla lobe, three crinkled lower lobes, and a five lobed calyx. Two fertile stamens and two infertile ones (staminodes)

Genus Hemigenia - white pink and purple tube shaped flowers with a helmet shaped upper corolla lobe, three lower lobes, and a two lobed calyx.Four fertile stamens. Leaves have rounded or blunt ends.

​Genus Hemiandra - white and pink classic mint shaped flowers with a two lobed calyx, a narrow corolla tube with two upper lobes and three lower lobes, and four fertile stamens. Hemiandras have distinctive sharp pointed leaves without petioles and opposite placement on the stem. Hemiandra pungens (Snakebush) is most common locally.

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​Genus Westringia - white, classic mint-shaped flowers with a five lobed calyx, a narrow corolla tube with two upper lobes and three lower lobes, and two fertile stamens. I usually see Westringia rigida in open woodland.

​Prior VERBENACEAE / CHLOANTHACEAE (MINT) FAMILY

Members of this family are most common in drier areas, and have drought tolerant dense woolly vegetation. There are only one or two species in each genus in this area, which vary greatly. They all occur on gravelly kwongan heath.

Dasymalla terminalus is a tallish shrub adjoining the Harrismith airstrip, which has spectacular white flowers in October.

Chloanthes coccinea is notable for its bright red flowers and sessile glandular leaves. The colour anthers and stigma extending from the corolla tube indicate bird pollination.

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​Cyanostegia Lanceolata is a tallish shrub that is very different to other Lamiaceae genera, and can be mistaken as a member of the Malvaceae family. Bright yellow stamens and the pistil are highlighted as they project out from the black corolla tube to attract buzz pollinating native bees. After pollination the corolla tube sheds leaving the calyx, which expands and glows in the sun.

Lechenaultia formosa, Red Leschenaultia is one of my favourite wildflowers. Partly because the patch I irrigate and till in Foxes Lair rewards me with exquisite flowers that remind me of mini red Manta Ray heads (yep I am a dreamer!)
​The 'tongue' is an indusium - a cup at the top of the style and surrounding the stigma that collects pollen from the anthers  while still in the bud. It is another example of secondary pollen presentation, which is used by many Australian plant species to ensure precise pollen placement, and is a feature of the Goodeniaceae genus.
In the images below I have cut petals away to show the process involved in loading and presenting the pollen as a flower develops.
Stamens are joined in an anther ring (connate) halfway up the unopened bud. The cupped indusium grows up to the anthers and collects pollen before growing through them to the mouth of the flower. 

​As the flower opens the indusium bends to present a package of pollen to insects that presumably crawl in to find nectar.
After the pollen has been removed or dies, a white growth of stigma cells emerges on the side of the indusium to harvest pollen from visiting insects. Voila, pollen delivered and collected from a precise spot on the target insect's body!

Indusium shapes vary and could remind one of the human eating plants in 'The Day of the Triffids' novel. The one on the common Lechenaultia biloba, Blue Leschenaultia is a ripper. Last year I found dainty little Lechenaultia tubiflora in deep white sand at Ockley Nature Reserve.

Here are more Goodeniace examples.

Goodenia caerula appears to be an exception because an insect has to push through closed petals to find the indusium. I suspect that this could be a moisture saving aid because this species flowers on gravel soils in November.

On the other hand all Dampieras also have hidden indusia, but in a small fold in two petals and called an auricle.

Genus Anthotium also hides the indusium in an auricle. Dainty priority 3 threatened species Anthotium odontophyllum, Durells Anthotium flowers on clay soils at the Claypit in November.

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. 
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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
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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