Sweet Wattle, Acacia suaveolens, is currently a colourful highlight of our heathlands. This open small shrub has fragrant creamy-yellow flower heads which cluster together along the branchlets, and brighten up our walks all winter before the spring wattles take over. The widely spaced bluish- green long narrow phyllodes are very different from our later wattles.
Sweet Wattle
A small garden bed near the Aireys Inlet Community Garden is becoming a showcase for unexpected flowerings of several uncommon, yellow low-growing ‘spring’ plants. Standing up tall are large bright flowers of Showy Podolepis, P. decipiens, one of our largest flowers, up to three cm across.
Showy Podolepsis
Beside them are drooping buds surrounded by a contrasting bed of large dark-green leaves. Scaly Buttons, Leptorhynchos squamatus, has similar, but much smaller flowers and tufted narrow greyish leaves. Clustered Everlasting, Chrysocephalum semipapposum, a higher plant with dense thread-like leaves is developing tight, flat-topped clusters of tiny yellow flowers.
Clustered Everlasting
Ellinor Campbell