Seeking Out Australian Native Orchids #85 - Ku-Ring-Gai Chase NP, NSW

First walk back after 2 months travelling in Germany, Czechia and England I was keen to find orchids. Went for a late afternoon walk down Lovers Jump Creek. The walk follows a narrow track through a rainforest section above the creek. This was the home to all the amazing autumn orchids I saw earlier this year. The first thing I notice is that the sides of the track have been cleared with a machete or a whipper snipper. I sure am hoping that they have not disturbed the habitat in the enthusiasm to make a wider footpath. I will not know for a few months yet - the whole summer perhaps.

The track opens out onto a wider fire trail with vegetation changing from rain forest to dry sclerophyll woodland dominated by eucalyptus and banksia and a few mimosa trees. The track runs along the creek about 70 metres (200 feet) above it for about a kilometre (3/4 mile) before it drops down a level and runs parallel to the creek for another kilometre about 20 metres above the creek (60 feet). As the season moves into summer I expect to find two varieties of cryptostylis orchids along here. I see leaves but nothing flowering yet.

The trail then drops down and crosses the creek and climbs underneath a sandstone cutting for about a kilometre before it levels out. This is a good spot for early season orchids as they are more exposed to the afternoon sun. Maybe I will find the ones I saw last year hugging the side of the sandstone cutting. Indeed I do - they are growing in a small pocket of soil one third of the way up a vertical sandstone cliff

First photo is supposed to have the flower in focus but it does show the buds on the plant behind perfectly as it forms up to pop 3 flowers. The stem is about a 20 cm long (9 inches) and is growing out of a small fissure in the rock maybe 2 feet long (60 cms). I am amazed that heavy rain does not wash the soil out. I do know that in due course as the tubers grow and divide the pressure will force the fissure to widen and the rock face will break away

Taken at 1/2000 sec, f/5, ISO-400. I might have had a bit more in focus if I had set f-stop to f/8 (the maximum)

The orchid has two English names - cow orchid is the one I have always used as the flower looks like a cow's tongue. The more common name is large tongue orchid.

Large Tongue orchid - Cryptostylis subulata

http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cryptostylis~subulata

Photo work is quite challenging because the labellum (the purple tube) is quite long and the sepals and lateral petals (the green bits) spread quite wide. Bright sun does not help much either through it does bring the colours out well.

I did get the pertinent bits in focus here - just cropped off the sepal at the back - too bad.

Taken at 1/800 sec, f/8, ISO-400

I do like the front on view which shows the tubular nature of the labellum. I do wonder how pollination works when the tube is so closed in like that - maybe ants do it.

Now the best part of being a keen orchid hunter is I get to find other things too - here is a St Andrew's Cross spider - so named because it spins a cross hatched section on 4 quadrants of its web which then looks like a St Andrews Cross featured on the Scottish flag. I like the shadow of the late afternoon sun too

St Andrew's Cross Spider - Argiope keyserlingi

Then I found this little flower with a slight pink tinge on its petals - very delicate and also home to a small black insect which I could not see with the naked eye at photo time.

Zoomed in I can see that I have got the focus on the centre part almost perfect.

The track loops back through a section of dry sclerophyll woodland below the houses that flank the park. I found this budding orchid - it is one of the hyacinth orchids. It is hard to be specific on identification though the purple colouring suggests it could be a Variegated Hyacinth orchid. I will have to come back in a few days.

Photos taken with Canon Powershot G16 on November 13, 2017