On a bright sunny day this week there was such a feeling of Spring in the air that Laurie and I decided to take a walk in the nearby Ironbark Basin Nature Reserve, part of the Great Otway National Park * .
There was plenty of delightful birdsong and wild flowers coming into bloom. One of the more dramatic of which is the Grass Tree, Xanthorea Australis * which is endemic to the south-east of Australia and Tasmania. This specimen was a little over 2 metres tall including the flower stem.
You can see that the flowers have only just started to open and are doing so first on the sunny side of the stem.
The nature reserve sits in a shallow valley above high cliffs on a long sweeping beach.
I was fascinated by this almost bonsai-looking Casuarina * growing right on the edge of the cliff, seeming to be so lightly connected to the earth. Proof of the hardiness of these plants.
Here is the view the casuarina is looking at far below.
Earlier in the week I attended the meeting of Ikebana International Melbourne * . We had a guest speaker who is a French-born florist and potter from a small town east of Melbourne. In acknowledgement of his cultural heritage I made a simple ikebana using the French national colours: blue, white and red
The blue lines are painted cane, with white chrysanthemums in a copper-red vase by the, no longer active, ceramic artist Jamie Beeston * .
Greetings from Christopher
15th October 2016
* click on the blue text for further information
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