Great! I’ve found another uncommon fern. It’s hardly fair with the Bird’s nest fern though, it stands out from most other plants in the bush with it’s bright yellow-green fronds and it’s distictive rosette habit.
This one was growing on the edge of a sandstone cliff in the bush out the back.
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Yet another Coral Fern! Along with the Pouched Coral Fern ( Gleichenia dicarpa ) and Gleichenia rupestris the G. microphylla compleats the entire set of coral Ferns found in Sydney, acording to NPOS anyway.
G. microphylla has features of both G. rupestris and G. dicarpa. It had very fine small fronds that are a deep green colour and convex on the top like G. dicarpa. But on the undersidethey are flat or just slightly concave like G. rupestris.
I fond this specimen growing on the side of a damp sandstone cliff at the back of the house. There was some G. dicarpa growing there too. G. microphylla is meant to be uncommon in the area so I’m happy to have found it so close by.
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The Gymea lily is exotic looking with it’s huge sword like leaves radiating from it’s base and the towering stem with large flower on top. It’s a popular garden plant, and impressive that it’s naturally occurring in the area. I can’t remember every having seen one outside of peoples gardens though.
Compare the NSW excelsa with the Queensland palmeri, so similar, yet having the flowers grow all the up the stem really sets them apart.
The stems and roots of the Gymea Lily are edible and were consumed by Aborigines.
Doryanthes palmeri
“[The] Giant Spear Lily is a large, succulent herb which grows as a rosette. It’s hairless leaves are sword–shaped, and up to 3 m long and 20 cm wide” – Atlas of Living Australia
Gymea Lilies are spectacular, especially when they are in flower. The plant is on a colossal scale, sword shaped leaved up to 2m long radiate from a point in the ground. When flowering they grow a thick spear up to 4m long from the center of the leaves with large vivid red flowers perched at the top.
This one had me sratching my head a bit, Gymea lillies are native to the Sydney area and are a common plant in residential gardens. But this individual growing just outside the office has a very different arangement of flowers on the spear from other Gymea Lillies in the area. Instead of one neat cluster at the very top of the spear, the flowers were sprouting form the sides starting about 2/3 of the way up all the way to the top.
After a bit of research it looks like this one is a Doryanthes palmeri, a native of Queensland and far north NSW, not the local variety which is Doryanthes excelsa. I’ll do a follow up post on the local Gymea Lily.
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