South Australia field work, part one

Currently I am doing field work in South Australia with Tim Collins of UNE. The past three days Bev Overton very kindly guided us around Kangaroo Island, where we collected plants for Tim's research.

Kangaroo Island has a beautiful coastline, but of course so has much of Australia.

Close to this spot we ran into an angry hive of feral bees but got away relatively lucky.

Above a ball of seagrass. I read about these in one of my daughter's nature books, but this is the first time I saw them with my own eyes.

Coming to the flowering plants, this is Olearia ciliata (Asteraceae). Fairly small for a daisy bush, which is why I could not at first believe that it is indeed an Olearia.

I was very happy to find Leiocarpa supina (Asteraceae) as it was on my 'shopping list'. It is not exactly rare, I ultimately saw it in several coastal locations. I assume the orange lichen in the background would have to be the same species as the one in Tasmania, that of the Bay of Fires.

Finally a particularly rare species. We learned that Stilidium tepperianum (Stylidiaceae) is a Kangaroo Island endemic, and we were fairly lucky to see it.