There is quite a lot of this small flowering shrub in Perth’s Bold Park at present. It is half hidden in the undergrowth and not particularly noticeable. But if you take a close up look, you’ll find that the small flowers are quite pretty. It’s called Pearl Flower (Conostephium pendulum).
As well as yesterday’s Hovea, the rather similar looking Native Wisteria is also flowering in Perth’s Bold Park at present. They both have blue/purple pea type flowers, but they are quite easy to tell apart. Hovea is a straggly shrub with narrow leaves, while Native Wisteria is a climber with broad leaves. But the most obvious difference is that Native Wisteria has distinctive green “eyes”.
We noticed that Common Hovea (Hovea trisperma) is in flower in the bushland of Perth’s Bold Park at present. Despite its name, Hovea is a flower that you don’t really see very often. The intense purple/blue of the flowers is very striking.
Here are two more wildflowers that you can see in Bold Park at present. The odd thing is that they are both the same species – Dwarf Sheoak (Allocasuarina humilis), which only grows to a height of 1-2 metres. Those are female flowers above and male flowers below. Vive la difference!
Here are three more wildflowers that you can see in Perth’s Bold Park at present.
The pale pink flowers up top are Diplopeltis huegelii (no common name, as far as we know) and the deep red flowers above are Cockies Tongue (Templetonia retusa). The flowers below are Yellow Tailflower (Anthrocercis littorea). All are native to Western Australia.
As well as the Firewood Banksia that we featured yesterday, there are three other Banksia species in flower in Perth’s Bold Park at present.
That’s Acorn Banksia (Banksia prionotes) up top, Parrot Bush (Banksia sessilis) above, and Swamp Banksia (Banksia littoralis) below.
The most noticeable wildflower in Perth’s Bold Park at present is Firewood Banksia (Banksia menziesii). The most common flowers are pink, as shown above, but there is also a rarer yellow form.
The flower heads (or inflorescences​, if you want to be technical) look quite different before they start to open.
