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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Sturts Desert Pea


Yesterday on my way to project management training at the National Wine Centre, which is next to the Adelaide Botanic Garden, I came across Sturts Desert Pea. It is the State Flower of South Australia and I had heard of it through the Desert Pea Blog, another Adelaide blog, but I had never seen it before. My boss who was with me at the time told me he had lived in Alice Springs during one of the years they had huge floods and that after that, the desert turned red with Desert Peas.

The plant is very unremarkable for most of the year, prostrate and grey green and adapted to very arid conditions. When it decides to flower, it is glorious.

5 comments:

Nunyaa said...

Very pretty Colin.

James Higham said...

Like the centre of Oz - suddenly bursts out if there's water.

Anonymous said...

I bet a sea of them is impressive although they are rather strange flowers - Maybe the black bits which look like googly eyes are to scare off something that would otherwise eat it?

Reminds me of the advice I once read of wearing an ice-cream container on your head with eyes painted on the back to stop the magpies attacking. I have yet to see anyone wearing an ice-cream container hat. I guess we prefer to take the risk :-)

island wench said...

This is absolutely gorgeous! Looks a bit alien :-)

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