Spring has come and the bush is bursting with colour and many people are out enjoying it. One of the gems that provide some of this colour are the orchids but as is highlighted in the following poem they are often overlooked yet without them and the other delicate herbaceous flowers the bush will look grey and gloomy. So slow down, take a closer look and enjoy the hidden many coloured jewels of the bush.
Do they say that the bush is all greyness and gloom
Why, the rainbow has lent every thread from his loom
To weave into flower and shrub!
There are star-flowers blue as the deep winter sky,
Here are “Grandmothers Honeycups”, humble and shy;
And the purple of hovea bloom.
Half hiding, half peeping, the orchids appear,
The friendly and cheerful red runner creeps near –
Say, where are the greyness and glooom.
Lilian Wooster Greaves
from West Australian Orchids by Emily H Pelloe, 1930
NOSSA 