Past Events › Armadale branch

Unfortunately our scheduled guest speaker has succumbed to Covid-19. At very short notice, Kim Fletcher has agreed to present his…

Unice Robinson is the co-ordinator for the Friends of Mary Carroll Wetland, in Gosnells (Bush Forever site no. 124). It’s an important feeding area and refuge for waterbirds and as a social connection for local people to use. Unice will talk about the importance of fringing vegetation for our waterbirds as necessary in an urban-built environment as waterbird interaction and use is as important as the need for water.

Sophie is an enthusiastic self-taught photographer who uses the camera function of her mobile phone. Her wildflower journey started some three years ago with no photography or botanical background. Since then, she has gained much knowledge on both fronts and has fallen deeply in love with the beauty of our Western Australian flora.

In his talk, Kim Fletcher will describe that despite the harsh conditions the local bush has endured over summer, there are still flowers to be discovered blooming to enliven what is generally a drab bushland. With the first rains, the browns, yellows and dull greens of so much of the local vegetation begins to disappear to be replaced by a refreshed vegetation.

Mistletoe expert Tony Start will talk about what started his interest in mistletoes and his subsequent studies to pose the question - where do they fit in the world of parasitic plants? Tony will then discuss some of the mistletoes of Western Australia (especially those of southern WA) and some ecological issues.

Dr Siegy Krauss and his team are employing camera traps, selective pollinator exclusion experiments and genotyping of seeds to assess the impacts of different classes of visitors (birds, honey possums, insects) to the flowers of banksias, eucalypts and kangaroo paws. Results support the hypothesis that birds are critical pollinators with unique genetic consequences for the plants they pollinate.