Spring Kilmore

Something Is Moving In the Land

After a few wet and cold weeks, we are seeing glimpses of Spring. We have patches of bright  and warm sunshine interspersed amongst the cold squalls. I was standing in bright sunshine just a few hours ago whilst hail stones were hitting my bald head.







Just this week, all of a sudden,  the flowers are beginning to bloom. There are many Early-Nancy, far more than we usually have. They are called Early-Nancy for an obvious reason, one of the first flowers of Spring. Good rainfall this year seems to have helped them along. The botanical name of these small pinky white flowersw is Wurmbea dioica. 


 I love botanical names, they contain so much information. According to Michael Bedingfield,

 (http://step.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Wurmbea-dioica-Early-Nancy.pdf  writing in the Friends of the Grassland Newsletter 2003)  F. Van Wurmb was a Dutch merchant and amateur
botanist who lived in Java, Indonesia in the 18th century. And the word dioica is a Greek word for two houses. This is referring to the male and female flowers which occur on the plants. They usually occur on different plants but I am sure I have seen them on a single plant.

It is quite easy to see the difference between the flowers, the female flowers have oval shaped fruit. Sometimes there are a few bisexual flowers in the inflorescence. The different flowers can be seen in the pictures.



I saw my first Green-hood orchid out, and there are many more on the way.



 I found a small hovea, just the one at this stage, and patches of clematis.



I think it was Edna Walling who, when speaking of gardening, talked of the enormous pleasure in anticipating. what is to come. There is so much to look forward to in the coming weeks.

What a waste of time to walk around a golf course when we can walk in the bush.