Thursday, September 15, 2011

Honeyeater's heaven

The natural world is so surprising, not only is the flower of this Grevillea species quite odd looking, it is green. Grevillias make up a large part of the native flora of Australia and were among the first plants described by the botanist and explorer Sir Joseph Banks in the 18th century.  Grevillia Banksii being the most common form. Much work has been done on hybridizing these plants and there are now many varieties suitable for the home garden. Dry information I guess, but their chief delight for me is to see them covered in bees and honeyeating birds who come for the copious amounts of nectar.


In common with many of these nectar bearing plants, the indigenous people steeped the flowers of grevillia  in water to make a sweet drink and the flowers also provided the raw materials for the honey they gathered.
Heigh-ho, off to do the dishes! 

3 comments:

  1. Beautiful work, Carole! Australian native flowers are so complex and worthy of study, and it's lovely to see them getting the etegami touch. I like the little curls, so exactly right, and the restrained palette. Do you know Celia Rosser's work - you would enjoy it I think?

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  2. Hello again!

    After back-tracking to Murr's blog, I finally made time to read through your sites.
    I do love your etegami koala banner!

    Nope! For some reason, Blogger does not want me to use my Wordpress persona.But if you want to find me follow this back to Blogger and click "my web page"
    http://moreidlethoughts.wordpress.com

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  3. Nice piece. I'd have trouble drawing the many curls.

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