Monthly Archives: September 2011

Fish Bones

September 5, 2011PlantsFish Bones, Lomandra, Lomandra obliqua, Nativeadmin

Lomandra obliqua

“A small, stiff, sprawling herb with 2-ranked leaves. Common in heath and woodland” – NPOS p.277

The number of plant species is overwhelming, sometimes I step out side and I just don’t know where to start, almost everything I look at is new or unknown. A lot of the plants I’m identifying at first are novel or unusual, Fish Bones I think falls into that category.

It’s a small and hardy looking plant that seems to occur in clusters. It looks primitive, simple yet tough and well adapted to it’s environment.

more info:

Broom Spurge

September 5, 2011PlantsAmperea, Amperea xiphoclada, Broom Spurge, Nativeadmin

Amperea xiphoclada

“A wiry shrub to 60cm high, apparently leafless, with several strongly ridged stems arising from a woody rootstock” – NPOS p.165

I found this one just out the back of the house. In the close up picture you can just see the tiny tiny leaves. They’re barely noticeable, growing straight out of the stems, on some you can see serrated margins.

Broom Spurge - Scientific name: Amperea xiphoclada

Lavender Scallops

September 5, 2011Plantsintroduced, Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi, Lavender Scallopsadmin

Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi

It took a while to track this one down. The way I did it in the end was to type in a loose description of the plant into Google Images and look for a picture that matched. “bell like orange flowers succulent” did the trick.

From what I could find these plants are a native of Madagascar. A previous owner of the house or a neighbor must have liked them, they are running wild all through our garden.

Noticed belongs to the order Saxifragales, I wonder if this is where the character Saxifrage Russell from Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trillogy got his name.

Broad Tailed Gecko

September 5, 2011Animalsgecko, lizard, Phyllurus platurus, reptileadmin

Phyllurus platurus

This little guy was sitting behind a drainage box I’d removed to clean. There are often geckos to be found under the house, not usually out in the open like this though. Searching around and looking at pictures this looks like a Phyllurus platurus, supposedly quite common in the Sydney area.

In Garigal

Observations in Garigal National Park