Wildflower Walk

As the weather warms, and the days get longer, we are finding time for a post dinner walk.

 We are very lucky to have a railway reserve nearby. It is the perfect place to find Spring Wildflowers baring beautiful names like Milkmaids, Early Nancies and Chocolate Lilies.

 This time of year even the weeds look pretty. We have been gradually chipping away at this highly persistent Broom at our place, but it refuses to be swept away.

 I love telling kids these dainty little plants are carnivores. They can't resist touching the Sundew's (Drosera) sticky traps.

 

 

 Trigger Plants (Stylidium), also fascinate the children. They have a hammer like pollination system that can be triggered using a fine stick.

 Image Source

 

Bush Tucker plant, Cherry Ballart (Exocarpus cuppressiformis), and it's fruits. The tree is parasitic and very difficult to propagate,  so unfortunately we can't plant one in a pot - it would make a wonderful Australian Christmas tree. The redder the fruit, the better they taste, unfortunately the birds are aware of this and the truly sweet ones are hard to find.

 

   

 Back home to admire our own flower collection and watch our resident Ring Tail Possum teeter on powerlines. I do love an after dinner stroll.

Cubs, Wildflowers, and The List

I volunteered to do a sunset wildflower walk with around 50 cubs on Monday - my daughter joined our local group about a year ago.  First I went and checked out the site, it's a great year for wildflowers, and they were in abundance.  Then I started wondering how I was going to point things out, and engage 50 kids and their accompanying volunteers. The bush is a big space and kids like to roam and wander - a worthwhile activity in itself but not exactly the evenings objective.

Then I had the small genius of giving them a little list, and telling them to be bush detectives. There were no accompanying pictures.

The list

Bracken

Trigger Plant

Moss

Mushrooms

Yam Daisy

Sundews

Milk Maids

Purple Flax Lily

Happy Wanderer

Blue Bells

Gum nuts

Spider web

Chocolate Lily

Wattle Mat Rush

Wallaby Grass

Cherry Ballart

Those little bits of paper worked! The kids really got into marking everything off and wanted to know what everything was. So they were asking questions of me rather than me trying to convey information to a moving crowd. They had no pencils but were folding or punching a hole by the name with a stick. I had no idea how determined they would become - Wallaby Grass of all things proved evasive until we found some right outside the scout Hall. They really tested my plant identification skills! On the list were a few easy things to make the task achievable, a few things kids might know, and then some things most children wouldn't recognise.  By the end the kids were pointing at things and telling me the names, and the adults seemed to really enjoy the flower hunt too.  It really stopped the group from surging forward in a hurry. The only thing I would change, would be to add a few more things to the list, as some kids were a bit disappointed when they found something new and it wasn't there to tick off.  By the end of the day I felt like I'd achieved the Scout motto -

For more great ideas of things to do with kids visit

Beautiful Bush Walk

Mt Bishop Walk 

Wilsons Promontory National Park

Victoria, Australia

Tree Fern fronds unfurling 

 Morel mushroom

Greenhood Orchid (Pterostylis sp.)

 Correa reflexa, Running Postman (Kennedia prostrata), Dillwynia sp.?

 Galls on Eucalyptus leaves

 

 New growth on Banksia sp.

 Creamy Candles - Stackhousia sp.

New growth on Eucalyptus sp. 

Burnt and growing Grass Tree (Xanthorrhoea sp.), Wilsons Promontory was recovering from fire when we visited it last year, and this year it had only just reopened after serious floods. Amazing to see nature recovering.

 flood damage

Wattle Lomandra

 Love Creeper (Comesperma volubile)