Not expecting to see many flowering plants on my latest Coast walk, these beauties surprised me: Epacris pulchella, or Coral Heath.
Unsurprisingly, ‘pulchella‘ means ‘beautiful’.
It’s a sandy walk where Flannel Flowers are massed like guards of honour in their season, but right now their greyish foliage is mere backdrop for this elegant Epacris.
And there were quite a few shrubs of this spiky-leaved wattle, Acacia ulicifolia, Prickly Moses or Juniper Wattle. Notably, it carried blooms at all stages and colours, rather like the Banksias do.
However, the dominant flowers were not at eye or ground level, but high up, as these Melaleuca trees (quinquenervia, I think) are in massed bloom everywhere on the coast here.
Their scent is powerful and pervasive, although to me it smells like some deep-fried battered takeaway food! The Rainbow Lorikeets are going noisily crazy over the feasts on offer.
Not flowers, but the strikingly bright fruit on this small tree caught my eye. There were only a few bunches like this, so not really obvious.
The knowledgeable folk on the NSW Native Plants Identification Facebook group, who identified the first two flowers here for me, also tell me this is Elaeodendron australe, or Red olive berry.
It’s a group well worth joining if native plants are your passion!