New wiki pages

Mary Sue Ittner msittner@mcn.org
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 18:03:52 PST
Hi,

I've added pictures of two more genera of tuberous terrestrial orchids we 
saw in Australia. The first is:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…

These are blue orchids, formerly included in Caladenia. I haven't done the 
wiki page for that one yet because it will take me longer since we saw so 
many different species (some I'm still trying to figure out.) Jim Waddick 
asked me to include the sizes of my Australian additions. I think this is a 
fair request even though I expect many of our wiki photographs don't 
include this information. You often can't tell from the pictures, 
especially if all you see is a close up of the flowers. Many of the orchids 
we saw have a single leaf a long way away from the flower and difficult to 
get in focus in a picture if you want the flower in focus too. Both of the 
ones we saw are Western Australia endemics.

The second wiki page is:
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/…
This is a genus with only two species found in other areas of Australia. We 
saw one of the species in several places in Victoria. They are really 
beautiful flowers and the ones we saw ranged in color from white to dark 
purple. The first day we saw them it was very windy and frustrating as they 
would blow out of your frame. I captured a pollinator doing its thing on 
one of them, but it wasn't in focus as well as the picture I took seconds 
later when it rested before it flew away so that's the one I added. I'm not 
sure what the pollinator was. We also saw this species toward the end of 
our trip when we were staying in Apollo Bay. Bob and I took a walk by 
ourselves on the Great Ocean Walk one day. This walk on Victoria's 
spectacular west coast, stretches 91 kms starting at Apollo Bay. We weren't 
seeing nearly as many flowers in this area as we had seen in other areas on 
our trip although there were wonderful views, waterfalls, birds, tree 
ferns, and koalas. I read the description for all the day hikes for this 
walk that wouldn't be too far away for us to drive to from where we were 
staying and only one mentioned flowers. We had been told we were too early 
for flowers or that there were no flowers each time we asked. We were very 
pleased when the description turned out to be correct. We saw a lot of 
orchids including hundreds of Glossodia major in one spot. This was a very 
interesting stretch to walk as the habitats and soils changed as you walk 
and accordingly so did the flowers you saw.

Mary Sue 


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