I thought I'd try one last time to check out a Helmet-orchid colony I had seen in Gembrook Park.
First time I saw them was last year and they had just finished flowering; I couldn't really tell what they were.
Three previous times this year I had been back but couldn't even find them again
so I was very happy to find lots of leaves and some flowers this day.
Seeing them in flower allowed me to ID them as Veined Helmet-orchids,
Corysanthes diemenica (syn.Corybas diemenicus).
Then I went for a walk in the forests around Kurth Kiln,
a little away from the heavily trafficked areas (though the tracks along
Tomahawk Creek are nice and where
I saw my second dragonfly for the day).
Anyway, out the back tracks I found another three colonies of the Helmet-orchids.
The third colony find was especially interesting.
I heard some noise in the bushes beside the track and paused to see if a
wallaby or echidna might wander out.
Nothing did, so I went in and behind a large eucalypt tree was the colony.
There was a lot of debris there, built up leaf and bark litter.
Some of the orchids tried very hard to the point where this
one made a 17cm stalk to reach the light.
Looks like it could only manage a small leaf after that effort.
At my final stop I found another colony of the Helmet-orchids,
however in all 5 colonies there were a lot of leaves but relatively few flowers.
At a couple of locations during the day I also saw some cool, black fungi, probably Xylaria species.
All up I was walking around from 8:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon (including a lunch break)
and my camera took about 800 photos so that counts as a successful trip in my books.
