New wiki pages
Mary Sue Ittner (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