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 precisely, Cape Riche to Hamersley River). 

Verticordia means the 'turner of hearts', a reference to Venus, the goddess of love. Venus was rather fond of the myrtle, which is in the same family, the Myrtaceae. So a double edged name, making a connection to the plant family and to the beauty of the floral show.

That show can be bright yellow, pale pink or deep red, often ground-hugging or tightly cushioned to give maximum impact in the landscape. The Mouse Featherflower, as noted above, can have red or yellow flowers.

The flowers of Verticordia are mostly pollinated by insects, or less commonly, birds and mammals. It will be the mass of flowers that attracts the relevant pollinator, plus the mousy smell, which some authors suggest may attract small marsupial visitors. Oh, and there is nectar. 

However don't be fooled by these pictures. The liquid here is dew and irrigation water, perhaps mixed with a little nectar in the open flower. 

What that liquid does though is block out the inner parts of the flower. So all you see in the open flowers to the left are frilly dishes with the red female stalk (the style) arising from a red hued droplet. You can just see a few short hairs sticking out from the shiny 'receptive' green bit on the end (the stigma).

Here is lower-quality picture taken on 5 March this year, two weeks after the one above, with flowers now fully open but not revealing much more internal detail at this scale. This time it was raining when took the picture so dampness prevails.

Submerged, will be a circle of pollen-bearing anthers (the top of the male bits, the stamens) and other bits and pieces of ornamentation (including staminodes, aborted or sterile stamens). The form of the stamens in Verticordia are of great interest to botanists, and quite species specific.

But today, enjoy the beautiful droplets and splash of red liquid, another attractor for passing mammals (such as ourselves) in the Australian Garden at Cranbourne, in the last week of January.