Swampy stars

My starring image is of a Sundew (Drosera), a tiny carnivorous plant… and I hadn’t expected to find hundreds of them here. I’d first met these gorgeous little stars in the heath of Bimblebox Nature Refuge in the Queensland Desert Uplands, as different from this environment as you get.

I’d had to go home and fetch my gumboots to return to this walk, as soon after the start of the Elkhorn Fire Trail it was obvious I’d need them.

The Sundews were everywhere in the bog that was the trail. I assumed there were plenty of little insects for them to trap in those glistening drops… and to digest.

In fact, the variety of plants growing in this watery trail showed me long since it had been dry, and thus driven on.

An intensive growth of young paperbarks lined the track.

And where there weren’t paperbarks, there were banksias.

Backlit by the morning sun, this dense banksia forest made a delicate picture, despite the hefty flowers.

The new leaves of a baby paperbark were as pretty in shape and colour as any flower.

The track came to a T-junction with Bells Fire Trail that was equally wet. It seemed as if it would be quite a while before these were needed for fire surveillance, but with the climate so unpredictable, who knows?

I could see the plain that they surrounded. Maybe here I’d find Christmas Bells at the right time?

I took the right turn and, once on drier ground, taller trees began and soon house roofs appeared nearby. I turned back.

Slogging back though the mud, I blessed my gumboots and kept an eye out for Sundews. Even with so many, they were too beautiful to be stepped on.

Even if they were carnivorous…