Tag: Flora
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A SUNDAY STROLL IN HARARE
Jet lag got the best of me so instead of sleeping in on my first day in Zimbabwe, I woke up at dawn. It looked like a beautiful spring day in Harare so I put on my walking shoes to explore. There’s always one destination I aim for when I arrive to a new place: […]
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JOSHUA TREES AND FAN PALMS
In a good year, the Mojave Desert will get 100 mm of precipitation. So, plants need to fiercely compete for limited resources or develop mechanisms to survive by living on next to nothing in terms of precipitation. The Joshua Tree (Yucca brevifolia) is one of those species which has mastered desert living. Its broad root […]
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IT’S FLOWER TIME
When Padma and I planned our two-month Northern Hemisphere Friends and Family tour, I made sure we’d be back in time for the Western Australia wildflower show. As I discovered last season, Western Australia is a biodiversity hotspot for its flora. The first wildflowers start blooming in July and reach a climax in September … […]
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FITZGERALD RIVER NATIONAL PARK
Fitzgerald River National Park is one of Western Australia’s largest parks but only comprises 0.13% of the State’s total area. Yet 20% of the State’s flora can be found in the park. It’s a ridiculously diverse region of the State where you can find 1800 species of flowering plants. About 60 of those species are […]
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STIRLING RANGE NATIONAL PARK
DAY 4: MT HASSELL I follow a Facebook group of the Wildflower Society of Western Australia and I have been seeing a lot of posts of gorgeous photos from the Stirling Range. As a newcomer here, I had never heard of the place. I Googled it and learned that it’s in the southwest of Western […]
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BRAIN FOG
Photo: Drosera porrecta. A species of sundew without a common name. Endemic to Western Australia. Carnivorous. Has traps consisting of sticky-glandular, flypaper-like leaves. Hard to find. Will have a white flower later in the year. Once upon a time I was a naturalist in the state and national parks of the United States. I would […]
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THE LARGEST TEMPERATE FOREST ON EARTH
On the last hour of the last day of our double crossing of the Nullarbor Plain, Padma and I drove real slowly. We had no hurry to reach the dumpy motel room in Norseman that awaited us. The sun was getting low in the sky when we encountered a significant change in landscape. The scrubby, […]
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GIJA JUMULU
You’d be forgiven if you thought this huge boab tree (Adansonia gregorii) had lived in this spot overlooking Perth for many centuries. In fact, it’s only resided in the Western Australian Botanic Garden since 2008. No, boabs aren’t super-fast growing trees. The tree is in fact 750 years old and began its life 3200 kilometres […]
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MORE CAMERAS THAN TULIPS
It’s tulip time and the bulbs are blooming in full force in Holland Zuid. So Padma and I set out to cure our spring fever and travelled to the land of tulips over the weekend. Our destination was Keukenhof Garden, a 32-hectare garden dedicated to all bulby things growing in spring. We first drove around […]
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