Comment: Rambling about, looking for wildflowers

Submitted: Friday, Jun 06, 2014 at 16:14

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Rambling about, looking for wildflowers

We have all heard the story. Travellers who say, when asked if they have seen wildflowers “I drove down that road two days ago and there was nothing to see”.

ExplorOz Team - Michelle

Thanks Val, many of us are often in such a rush to see and experience everything that we forget it takes time and patience to observe the small stuff. It's just like scuba diving - where a skilled diver can find a gazillion critters on a murky dive by looking for the small things when everyone else finishes the dive and says the viz was so bad they saw nothing (ie. no big fish). Great suggestions here thank you.

Regarding your suggestion to possibly collect samples, I thought the picking of wildflowers was illegal, it certainly is in WA. Is it not so in other states? Also do you know if it is only the flower that is not permitted to be picked in WA - as you do suggest leaves, and seed pods too.

Michelle Martin
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Reply By: Member - John and Val - Wednesday, Mar 04, 2015 at 01:25

Wednesday, Mar 04, 2015 at 01:25

Thanks Michelle for your kind comments. Time seems to always be the enemy, and I think you may have fallen for it here - or else missed a paragraph. I most certainly do NOT advocate collecting plant material, and say (about 2/3 of the way down the blog):

"But these days there are laws regulating who can collect plants, and where it can be done, with stiff penalties for picking plant material without a permit. So a better approach is to collect only photographs."

My point in talking about collecting actual plant specimens was to show how the observation of plants has been done in the past, and that finding plants/wildflowers is part of a long tradition.

I liked your analogy to scuba diving - pretty much the same experience of many hopeful wildflower watchers. Its tempting to rush about trying to see everything - the frequent irony is that the more we rush the less we see.

Cheers,

Val.