IT WAS a drizzly morning when members of the Ipswich branch of the Native Plants Queensland visited the Pine Mountain Bush Reserve last Saturday.
The main focus was on finding and photographing small flowering plants, in particular Sturts Hibiscus (Hibiscus sturtii) one of the smallest of the native hibiscus plants and the orange Spade Flower (Hybanthus aurantiacus) a small grass-like plant.
We found both and they were in flower.
The Bush Reserve was a Bicentennial project and opened in 1988.
It has a well maintained and a reasonably easy walking 800 metre circular track through majestically tall trees.
There are also three waterholes within the Reserve. At one waterhole, a pair of Wood Ducks were spotted and watched for a while.
We walked slowly around the track, as plant people are wont to do when looking at plants, for several hours, recording and photographing our many finds.
One member of the group is also a birdo and recorded 42 separate bird calls during our excursion.
At the conclusion of the walk, we had morning tea at the picnic tables and compared notes on which plants we had seen and what photographs had been taken.
— Heather Knowles
