Presenting the shade-loving white lady
As I bed down my next book, to follow Three Worlds Oak * , I thought I'd post a few flower pictures with my understanding of why they look like they do. That understanding will, as usual, be based on what I hear, read and extrapolate. The book, to be published by CSIRO Publishing, will be called The Flower Unfurled . I can't give away much at this stage, but the central idea is to look into the 'what', 'why' and 'how' of a flower. For example, does the picture above show a single flower or a collection of flowers, and how do the parts of the flower/flowerhead operate to attract pollinators? And why is it white? The answers might seem fairly obvious in the case of Telopea 'Shady White Lady', illustrated here**. Oh, and the cultivar name 'Shady Lady', applied to red and white flowered hybrids, refers to the plant's tolerance of some shade rather than any allusion to disreputable character. Most people would know that the waratah bloo...
