BERRIES

x Fatshedera is an intergeneric hybrid created by crossing Fatsia japonica 'Moserii' (Japanese fatsia) with Hedera helix (common ivy)  in the Araliaceae family. With one parent being a shrub and the other a vine, the plant can be trained in multiple ways.  It can be tied to supports as a vine or allowed to grow along the ground as a groundcover. Pruning the plant to encourage bushiness will give it a more shrub-like form. Greenish-white flowers are produced in Autumn, and berries (seen here) develop in Winter.

This plant is very tolerant of adverse conditions including air pollution and coastal sea spray.  Plant in shade or north exposure for winter protection.  Works well planted under taller shrubs, in containers, or in borders.  It even makes a good houseplant.  Propagates by softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings. Variegated cultivars are available.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

MICROCOSM 2

A tiny corner in the garden where a few plants seem to live happily with one another. There is a fern (Pteris spp), a spikemoss (Sellaginella spp lower left) and the pink knotweed (Persicaria capitata).

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the My Corner of the World meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

POWERFUL

Germinating seeds and growing plants exert tremendous forces on inanimate objects around them that confine them. Plants can break concrete, crush stone and split hardwood. More can be read about this process and its mechanism here.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

FUMITORY

A few rains in Autumn are enough to germinate the seeds, and soon, great carpets of green fumitory shoots cover the waste ground. Fumaria officinalis, the common fumitory, drug fumitory or earth smoke, is a herbaceous annual flowering plant in the poppy family Papaveraceae. It is the most common species of the genus Fumaria in Western and Central Europe. It has become naturalised in many temperate parts of the world.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the My Corner of the World meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

TOADSTOOLS

We've had the first couple of really wintry days in Melbourne, with rain, hail, cold and up on the mountains, even snow. The wet has made the toadstools and mushrooms pop up in profusion.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

RUDBECKIA

Rudbeckia is a plant genus of 23 species in the family Asteraceae. The name of this genus was given by Carolus Linnaeus in honor of his teacher at Uppsala University, Professor Olof Rudbeck the Younger (1660-1740), and his father, Professor Olof Rudbeck the Elder (1630-1702), both of whom were botanists. The species are commonly called coneflowers and black-eyed-susans; all are native to North America and many species are cultivated in gardens for their showy yellow or gold flower heads.

The species are herbaceous, mostly perennial plants (some annual or biennial) growing to 0.5-3 m tall, with simple or branched stems. The leaves are spirally arranged, entire to deeply lobed, 5-25 cm long. The flowers are produced in daisy-like inflorescences, with yellow or orange florets arranged in a prominent, cone-shaped head; "cone-shaped" because the ray florets tend to point out and down as the flower head opens.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

JACOBINIA

A member of the Acanthaceae family, the Brazilian plume flower or jacobinia (Justicia carnea) is a shade-loving, soft-wooded shrub (ht 1.5m) with large, lush leaves. Thick plumes of white, pale pink or deep pink tubular flowers appear in regular flushes from early summer to late autumn. A form with dark purplish underleaves is known as 'Radiant' - perhaps more correctly should be called 'Huntington Form'.

Justicia carnea needs hard pruning in late winter, and regular dead-heading during summer will help to promote new blooms. It will also flourish in sunny spots but is useful for shaded sites, as are so many of the Acanthaceae family, which do so well in temperate climates. Whilst it will stand neglect, it responds well to feeding and watering. It is easily propagated from cuttings. It is a good companion to hydrangeas, Plectranthus species, ferns and camellias. The white form looks pretty with silver-leaved companions, such as Plectranthus argentatus and Pilea cadierei. 

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

FUNGUS

Our warm and wet weather (a result of La Niña weather phenomenon), has caused quite lush vegetation this Summer. Included in this growth spurt are fungi that grow on dead wood and leaf litter. The one illustrated here is probably Pycnoporus coccineus, or the "scarlet bracket fungus". It grows on dead wood and is one of the most common and colourful brackets that can be found even in dry weather growing on sticks and wood.

It is an orange to scarlet, fan shaped, firm bracket attaching along the straight edge to wood. Size is very variable. Juvenile fruit-bodies are a lovely scarlet colour; the underside is a deeper colour and consists of fine pores. As this fungus ages, the bracket gets larger; also the surface colour tends to fade with age and exposure to strong sunlight – in fact some old specimens are bleached to white, but usually the pores retain some colour. Can be solitary but more common in large groups on sticks and logs, refreshed after rain. It is probably the most widely distributed bracket fungus in Australia and is a saprophyte.

Saprophytic fungi feed on dead plant and animal remains. Many are extremely beneficial, breaking down this organic material into humus, minerals and nutrients that can be utilised by plants. Without these fungi we would also disappear under a mountain of unrotted dead leaves and logs!

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the My Corner of the World meme,

and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

BLACKBERRY FLOWERS

The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus Rubus in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus Rubus, and hybrids between the subgenera Rubus and Idaeobatus. The taxonomy of the blackberries has historically been confused because of hybridization and apomixis, so that species have often been grouped together and called species aggregates. For example, the entire subgenus Rubus has been called the Rubus fruticosus aggregate, although the species R. fruticosus is considered a synonym of R. plicatus.

The flowers are produced in late spring and early summer on short racemes on the tips of the flowering laterals. Each flower is about 2–3 cm in diameter with five white or pale pink petals. The drupelets only develop around ovules that are fertilised by the male gamete from a pollen grain. The most likely cause of undeveloped ovules is inadequate pollinator visits. Even a small change in conditions, such as a rainy day or a day too hot for bees to work after early morning, can reduce the number of bee visits to the flower, thus reducing the quality of the fruit. Incomplete drupelet development can also be a symptom of exhausted reserves in the plant's roots or infection with a virus such as raspberry bushy dwarf virus.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

WALLFLOWER

Erysimum (wallflower) is a genus of flowering plants in the botanical family Brassicaceae, that includes about 180 species, both popular garden plants and many wild forms. The genus Cheiranthus is sometimes included here in whole or in part. Erysimum has recently been ascribed to a monogeneric cruciferous tribe, Erysimeae. This tribe is characterized by sessile, stellate and/or malpighiaceous  trichomes, yellow to orange flowers and multiseeded siliques.

Most wallflower garden cultivars (e.g. Erysimum 'Chelsea Jacket') are derived from E. cheiri (often placed in Cheiranthus), from southern Europe. They are often attacked by fungal and bacterial disease, so they are best grown as biennials and discarded after flowering. They are also susceptible to clubroot, a disease of Brassicaceae.

Growth is best in dry soils with very good drainage, and they are often grown successfully in loose wall mortar, hence the vernacular name. There is a wide range of flower colour in the warm spectrum, including white, yellow, orange, red, pink, maroon, purple and brown. The flowers, appearing in spring, usually have a strong fragrance. Wallflowers are often associated in spring bedding schemes with tulips and forget-me-nots. The cultivar 'Bowles's Mauve' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

AFRICAN DAISY

This is a cultivated variety of Osteospermum or African Daisy.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

EARLY VIOLETS

Viola is a genus of flowering plants in the violet family Violaceae. It is the largest genus in the family, containing between 525 and 600 species. Most species are found in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, however some are also found in widely divergent areas such as Hawaii, Australasia, and the Andes. Some Viola species are perennial plants, some are annual plants, and a few are small shrubs. A large number of species, varieties and cultivars are grown in gardens for their ornamental flowers.

In horticulture the term "pansy" is normally used for those multi-coloured, large-flowered cultivars which are raised annually or biennially from seed and used extensively in bedding. The terms "viola" and "violet" are normally reserved for small-flowered annuals or perennials, including the type species.

Viola odorata is a species of the genus Viola native to Europe and Asia, but has also been introduced to North America and Australia. It is commonly known as wood violet, sweet violet, English violet, common violet, florist's violet, or garden violet. The sweet scent of this flower has proved popular throughout the generations particularly in the late Victorian period, and has consequently been used in the production of many cosmetic fragrances and perfumes. The scent of violet flowers is distinctive with only a few other flowers having a remotely similar odour.

References to violets and the desirable nature of the fragrance go back to classical sources such as Pliny and Horace when the name ‘Ion’ was in use to describe this flower from which the name of the distinctive chemical constituents of the flower, the ionones – is derived. The leaves are edible and contain mucilage.

This year our violets are blooming early (in mid-June, our first Winter month), quite unusual...

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the My Corner of the World meme,

and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

TALL

Eucalyptus is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, they are commonly known as eucalypts. Plants in the genus Eucalyptus have bark that is either smooth, fibrous, hard or stringy, leaves with oil glands, and sepals and petals that are fused to form a "cap" or operculum over the stamens. The fruit is a woody capsule commonly referred to as a "gumnut". Most species of Eucalyptus are native to Australia, and every state and territory has representative species.

Eucalyptus regnans is the tallest of all flowering plants, and possibly the tallest of all plants, although no living specimens can make that claim. The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 100.5 metres (330 feet) tall in Tasmania.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,

and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

ITALIAN LAVENDER

This is Italian (or Spanish) Lavender (Lavandula stoechas, or "Princess" Lavender). It is an evergreen shrub that usually grows to between 30 and 100 cm tall and occasionally up to 2 m tall in the subspecies 'luisieri'. The leaves are 1–4 cm long, greyish and tomentose. The inflorescence is crowned by a mass of purple elongated ovoid bracts about 5 cm long. The lower flowers form a tight rectangular in cross-section. The upper of the five teeth has a wrong-heart-shaped appendage. The crown is blackish-violet, up to 8 mm long and indistinct two-lipped. 

The flowers, which appear in late spring and early summer, are pink to purple, produced on spikes 2 cm long at the top of slender, leafless stems 10–30 cm long; each flower is subtended by a bract 4–8 mm long. At the top of the spike are a number of much larger, sterile bracts (no flowers between them), 10–50 mm long and bright lavender purple (rarely white). It blooms in spring and early summer, from the month of March in its native habitat, depending on the climate in which it grows. The Latin specific epithet stoechas comes from the Greek stoichas meaning “in rows”. It is also the Greek name for this species.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

BUTTERFLY

One of the old faithful garden shrubs is the diosma, with which seemingly no gardener can go wrong. It grows as a round tidy plant with masses of pink flowers in late winter and spring. It will grow in all but the most tropical and humid parts of Australia. Although its common name is most often diosma it is also known as confetti bush and breath of heaven.

Its botanic name is Coleonema pulchellum (or Coleonema pulchrum) and the plant is in the Rutaceae family. The genus name Coleonema is taken from a Greek term describing the base of the petals. The species name pulchellum means beautiful and small.

The species has pink flowers and tall growth. It will reach around 2m. The leaves of the plant are fragrant when rubbed and smell a little of sweet pine. There are various cultivars available including:

‘Compactum’ – a dwarf pink flowered form growing to 1m, which is also sold as ‘Nanum’;

‘Rubrum’ – a red flowered diosma (also sold as Red Form);

and ‘Sunset Gold’ – a dwarf golden foliage form growing to 75cm. This form has its best colour in summer and autumn when grown in full sun.

In addition a white flowered diosma, Coleonema album, is also available. This plant grows to about 1.5m tall with a spread of about 1.8m.

Diosma best grows in warm areas but will grow in most parts of Australia except the tropics. In humid summers it can be affected by fungal problems. In very cold areas such as mountain districts this plant will need a warm, sheltered micro-climate for best growth. It is native to the Cape Province of South Africa.

The butterfly is the Australian Painted Lady, Vanessa kershawi, in the Nymphalidae family, which is the largest family of butterflies with about 6,000 species distributed throughout most of the world. These are usually medium-sized to large butterflies.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

FORGET-ME-NOT

Myosotis (from the Greek: "mouse's ear", after the leaf) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae. In the northern hemisphere they are commonly called forget-me-nots or scorpion grasses. The common name "forget-me-not" was calqued from German, Vergissmeinnicht and first used in English in AD 1398 through King Henry IV. Similar names and variations are found in many languages.

Myosotis alpestris is the state flower of Alaska. Plants of this genus are commonly confused with Chatham Islands forget-me-nots which belong to a related genus, Myosotidium. Myosotis have pentamerous actinomorphic flowers with 5 sepals and petals. Flowers are typically 1 cm diameter (or less), flat, and blue, pink, white or yellow with yellow centres, growing on scorpioid cymes. They may be annual or perennial with alternate leaves. They typically flower in spring or soon after snow-melt in alpine eco-systems. Their root systems are generally diffuse.

Their seeds are found in small, tulip-shaped pods along the stem to the flower. The pods attach to clothing when brushed against and eventually fall off, leaving the small seed within the pod to germinate elsewhere. Seeds can be collected by putting a piece of paper under the stems and shaking the seed pods and some seeds will fall out. Myosotis scorpioides is also known as scorpion grass due to the spiralling curve of its inflorescence.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

DAISIES

Leucanthemum × superbum (or Shasta daisy) is a commonly grown flowering herbaceous perennial plant in the family Asteraceae with the classic daisy appearance of white petals (ray florets) around a yellow disc, similar to the oxeye daisy Leucanthemum vulgare Lam. but larger. Shasta daisies are characterised by a distinct odour which some find unpleasant.

It originated as a hybrid produced in 1890 by the American horticulturist Luther Burbank from a number of daisies. First, he crossed Leucanthemum vulgare with Leucanthemum maximum (Ramond) DC.; this double hybrid was itself crossed with Leucanthemum lacustre (Brot.) Samp. The resulting Leucanthemum triple hybrid was crossed with Nipponanthemum nipponicum (Franch. ex Maxim.) Kitam., creating an intergeneric cross of species from three continents. It was named after Mount Shasta, because its petals were the colour of the snow.

Some members of the genus are considered noxious weeds, but the Shasta daisy remains a favourite garden plant and ground-cover. Many cultivars are suitable for cut flowers, such as 'Becky', 'Esther Read', 'Silberprinzesschen' (Silver Princess), 'Snow Lady', 'Tinkerbell', 'Wirral Pride', 'Wirral Supreme'. The cultivar 'T.E. Killin' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit. The illustrated variety is 'Snowdrift', which we have growing in our garden.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

ECHINOPSIS

A photo of a lovely Echinopsis spp cactus flowering in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne. The only cactus genus that is more confusing than Echinopsis is that of Opuntia. In both cases, there is a great number of species (over 100) and a tremendous amount of variation. In Echinopsis plants range from very small, flattened-globose plants to quite large, treelike giants. As a result, there is a long list of synonymous names for many of the species. Some synonyms referring to other synonyms that refer to a subspecies of some seemingly distinct species. Sorting through these names often feels like a wild goose chase and is quite frustrating.

In more recent thinking, the previous two genera of Trichocereus and Lobivia are included with Echinopsis. However, it is not at all uncommon for enthusiasts to use all three names in discussion even if their labels read Echinopsis! This usage reflects the general (inexact) situation that the larger, columnar members are distinguished as Trichocereus while Lobivia includes a select group of smaller, not-as-spiny plants which typically flower from low on the plant similar to most Rebutia species. This leaves the bulk of plants referred to as Echinopsis to be mostly spiny, ribbed, globose plants.

The main factor that ties these plants together are their very large, showy flowers. These flowers are all very similar in structure – funnel shaped, with hairy/wooly scaled floral tubes which give rise to hairy, globular fruit filled with a soft, mushy pulp. The flowers seldom last more than a single day and may be diurnal or nocturnal depending on the species. These species hybridise easily and have resulted in a tremendous number of hybrids that some cactus growers specialise in or grow exclusively. There are certainly enough hybrids to keep even ardent hobbyists busy.

Because of their exceptional flowers, many Echinopsis species are found in garden centres and collections world-wide. The larger species (aka Trichocereus) are also popular landscape plants in warmer parts of the world. While there are a number of species common in cultivation, there are as many or more unknown hybrids in the trade. These hybrids are easy-to-grow and produce nice flowers, but buyer beware if exact names are desired. Plants of this genus are widespread throughout South America and inhabit a wide range of habitats and climates.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

ROSA "EVELYN"

Rosa "Evelyn" from David Austin was bred from Tamora x Graham Thomas. The rose has the typical Austin cupped /rosette form. Evelyn is known for the beauty of the blooms, for their fragrance and for a marvellous display at flowering time. The plant has a neat vase shape at the base, then reaches both up and out. It grows to about two metres tall with some canes spreading about the same width. Basals are produced readily, and throw candelabras of bloom - bearing huge, lush, drooping panicles of soft pink blossoms. Older canes tend to bloom with single buds, or in twos and threes.

This is one of my favourite roses in our garden. It not only looks beautiful and blooms prolifically, but also has a fragrance which is strong, yet not cloying. I struck it from a little cutting I took from a friend's garden a couple of decades ago and despite three uprootings and re-plantings in different parts of the garden it is still going strong (my hobby is not uprooting and replanting rosebushes, rather we redesigned the garden a few times...).

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

G for GUMTREE

Eucalypts—often called gumtrees—are icons of the Australian flora. With more than 800 species they dominate the Australian landscape, forming forests, woodland and shrublands in all environments except the most arid deserts. Karri and Mountain ash form tall wet forests, mallee species grow in semi-arid regions and snow gums are stunted twisted trees of subalpine regions.

The Darebin Creek is made up many plant communities including River Red Gum Grassy Woodland, dominated by Eucalyptus camaldulensis. This important plant community consists of a scattering of large River Red Gums, smaller trees and shrubs in groups with grasses and wildflowers growing underneath. Grassy Woodlands have regional significance as they now occur in small fragmented areas within the Catchment.

Smaller plants such as grasses, climbers and shrubs are well suited to urban gardens, so why not grow indigenous plants in your own garden? Try native violets (Viola hederacea) to replace traditional violets and native lilies (Dianella species) to replace Agapanthus or Kidney Weed instead of a lawn and save water at the same time!

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Nature Notes meme.