Smelly, frilly flowers may turn marsupial hearts
Vericordias are commonly known as featherflowers, due to the plumed extensions on the outer floral parts. Flowers are usually produced in large quantities, creating colourful and striking specimens in nature and in gardens.
In this particular case, the flowers have a 'pungent, unpleasant scent', 'faintly like mice' they say. For me, only a very faint musty smell, overwhelmed by the lolly-like odor emitted from the slightly crushed leaves below.
Mouse Featherflower, Verticordia fastigiata, has tiny flowers, but en masse they create a pattern not unlike a beautiful deep-red persian rug (or in the case of the deep-yellow-flowered form of the species, presumably a deep-yellow and green rug).
Featherflowers only grow naturally in Western Australian and the Northern Territory, with all but two of the 104 species in south-western Western Australia. That's where you'll find the Mouse Featherflower, on sandy soils in heathland between Albany and Esperance (more precisel…
In this particular case, the flowers have a 'pungent, unpleasant scent', 'faintly like mice' they say. For me, only a very faint musty smell, overwhelmed by the lolly-like odor emitted from the slightly crushed leaves below.
Mouse Featherflower, Verticordia fastigiata, has tiny flowers, but en masse they create a pattern not unlike a beautiful deep-red persian rug (or in the case of the deep-yellow-flowered form of the species, presumably a deep-yellow and green rug).
Featherflowers only grow naturally in Western Australian and the Northern Territory, with all but two of the 104 species in south-western Western Australia. That's where you'll find the Mouse Featherflower, on sandy soils in heathland between Albany and Esperance (more precisel…
