Summer flowers

SUMMER FLOWERS

DIANELLA REVOLUTA var. REVOLUTA Lilaceae
Spreading flax-lily

A tufted plant with leathery leaves, usually dark green above, up to 60 cm long, folded down the centre and edges curved backwards.
Plants of this lily often form large colonies in forests and woodlands, branched stems overtopping the foliage with numerous small star-like blue flowers, stamens with short swollen yellow stalks and dark anthers. Usually only a few flowers are open at the one time.

Small (10 mm.) berry fruits, dark blue, oval-round, containing shiny black seeds
Flowering: late spring and early summer - fruit mainly in summer.
Propagation: by division or from seed.
Most soil conditions are satisfactory for these hardy plants.

DIANELLA TASMANICA Liliaceae
Blue Flax Lily

A blue lily with hard linear leaves arising from underground rhizomes, forming dense clumps and tussocks, sometimes covering large areas of wet hillsides.
Leaves: long and more or less folded along the midrib, arranged in two opposite rows, the leaf margins and mid-rib rough with small teeth.
Blue flowers 8 mm across are in spreading panicles; each flower has 6 petaloid segments,
6 yellow stamens and central ovary. Base of each yellow stamen is thickened, the anther
oblong and yellow.
Fruit: a purple-blue ovoid berry.
Flowering: spring-summer.
Widespread and common, especially in wetter areas on rocky hillsides, sea level to mountain foothills. Plants may be invasive in the garden.
Tas; Vic; NSW
Information courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club.

ARTHROPODIUM MILLEFLORUM Liliaceae
Pale vanilla-lily
(arthro jointed podium foot - articulated flower stalks)
(mille-florum - thousand flowers)

A perennial lily of dry forests and woodlands with a semi-upright or lax basal tuft of strap-like leaves. Flower stems to 50 cm with small delicate star-shaped flowers on long stiffly spreading stalks.
Flower parts white, 3 of them pinkish outside. Stamens densely white and hairy.
Tasmanian plants differ from those on the mainland.
Flowering: spring or early summer. Flowers are strongly vanilla-scented on warm days.
Propagation from seed or by division (tubers).
Most soils and aspects suitable

A herb with long flowering branches and blue bell-shaped flowers about 3 cm in diameter
and much branched at ground level. Leaves are noticeably serrated and mainly confined to the base of the plant. The blue flowers are very prominent, consisting of a tube which is about 10 mm long, and lobes about 15 mm long . The outer surface of the flower is a paler blue than the inside.
Habitat: Grassy woodlands.
Flowering: summer.
Cultivation: may be propagated from seed.

Note: there are about 8 species of Wahlenbergia in Tasmania. Most are similar to W.stricta except that several species have much smaller flowers. They are notable for flowering in mid-summer in dry places, adding splashes of blue where there would otherwise be very little colour.
The Tasmanian bluebells are related to the Campanula or harebell of the northern hemisphere and tropical mountains.

WAHLENBERGIA STRICTA Campanulaceae
Bluebell

Photo courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club.

LINUM MARGINALE Linaceae
Wild Flax

Photo courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club.

This slender herb, 30-60 cm tall, has blue flowers, smooth slender blue-green hairless
stems and narrow leaves 5-25 mm long.
Flowers 5-petalled, blue, long stalked in terminal clusters.
Stamens 5, joined at the base, ovary of 5 fused carpels with spreading stigmas.
Flowering: spring-summer.
Widespread and common in temperate Australia.
Often found growing near Wahlenbergia.

CENTAURIUM spp. Gentianacae
Centaury

Slender, herbaceous plants, 30-40 cm high with entire opposite narrow-ovate leaves about 2 cm long, stem clasping and forming basal rosettes which persist or have withered by flowering time in different species.
Flowers: pink, tubular, 5-petalled in flat cymes, followed by delicate 2-valved seed
capsules.
Flowering: spring-summer. Widespread in coastal heaths and grasslands.

One native and two introduced species in Tasmania. This globally endemic genus is widespread in temperate and subtropical regions and in chalk and limestone areas of England..

Information courtesy of the Launceston Field Naturalists Club