Blue beauties

Photo: Sun Orchids (Thelymitra), Mount Hay

At the chemist in Leura the other day I saw a calendar with a photograph of a blue spotted sun orchid on it. It was so pretty, I hoped that I would see one in real life one day.

When I was photographing all the different flowers I could find out at Mount Hay I saw a cluster of purplish blue flowers and was set to dismiss them as a Rush Lily (Sowerbaea Juncea) one of the purple flowers I couldn't name the other day. The other by the way was a Spade Flower (Hybanthus Vernonii ). I found their names on Waratah Software site which I've recently discovered has good pictures of lots of Blue Mountains flowers.

Anyway, I decided to go and take a picture regardless and was glad to have done so when I found it to be an entirely different type of flower. It was not until I got home and looked as the pictures more closely I realised to my delight that it was a Sun Orchid.

The photo and poem below are of other blue beauties -- I don't know the name for the pictured flower yet. It is another one I found out at Mount Hay.

Words to walk with:

From The Bluebell by Anne Bronte

"O, that lone flower recalled to me
My happy childhood's hours
When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts
A prize among the flowers,
Those sunny days of merriment
When heart and soul were free,
And when I dwelt with kindred hearts
That loved and cared for me."