From small to tall

Published on by bushboy

The Lens-Artists Challenge #192: Earth Story

My focus for this challenge is vegetation. From a tiny moss “forest”

to grasses that support life

with seeds and flowers

ferns providing shelter

Bottlebrush bush with flowers and food for everyone

Grevilleas giving shade and food for insects and birds

Tree Ferns who are older than dinosaurs, first plants to recover from fires – yes those fires in 2019 – as seen here. The stems of tree ferns are a miniature ecosystem, with epiphytic plants like mosses, small ferns and maybe lichens growing on them.

The first fronds that emerge are called Fiddleheads

Bigger flowering trees can be spectacular like Poinciana trees

Or Illawarra Flame Trees which stand out against the green of the bush when flowering

and then there are the towering giants in the rainforest that support all manner of life from the soil to the tree tops

Where would an Earth Story be without our wonderful plants – from the small to the tall. The featured photo is my favourite spot, Raspberry Lookout where you can sit among the trees as well as look over the valleys and the tree tops.

36 thoughts on “From small to tall”

      1. And it is crazy to imagine how old ferns are and then how resilient with their ecosystem roots and ability to rebound
        When I worked as an educator at a nature center (20 years ago this year!!) well hikes were a big part of what we offered local schools. And bushboy, we had one part-time teacher who knew all the ferns – I was always impressed by her Latin names and ability to quickly identify the different ones – bracken, five finger, etc

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    1. Tree ferns only grow to about 3 metres or so. They grow at around 25mm a year so it takes a while to get tall. Glad you liked the photos Christine 🙂 🙂

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    1. Thanks ever so much Jo 🙂 How are you? Not heard from you for ages and thought that WP unfollowed or hopefully you were too busy to browse around

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  11. Fantastic Earth Story. I love the fire tree and found the fern trees intriguing. Even though we don’t wish for forest/wild fires they sure teach us so much about how ecosystems rebuild. I also loved how you started this story with the tiny moss and moved us into the trees. Well done. Donna Such a pretty place you live in.

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