The Nature of Robertson: "Little Dumpies" also at Bungonia

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

"Little Dumpies" also at Bungonia

Further to yesterday's post about the "Antelope Greenhoods" at Bungonia, there were many other Greenhoods there, including these "Little Dumpies" (Diplodium truncatum). The reason for the common name is pretty obvious - relatively large flowers, on short stems. Also the plural name is because they tend to grow in colonies.

I have seen "Little Dumpies" before, on Mount Gibraltar (on 9 May 2009)
But the ones we saw on Sunday were quite different to the ones from "The Gib". Those Mittagong plants were growing out in the open, amongst native Poa grasses and rock ferns, on the extremely hard trachyte rock "rock shelves" for which that site is famous.

By contrast, the "Little Dumpies" we found at Bungonia were growing in moist sandy soils and leaf litter, under the dense shrubbery of the Sticky Daisy Bush Olearia viscidula. And these "Little Dumpies" were decidedly red, not green like the plants on Mt Gibraltar. There were only about 8 flowers open when we saw them, but there were hundreds of plant rosettes there, spread over several square metres area.

This species has a very abrupt ending to the "hood". As PlantNET says: "Dorsal sepal long-acuminate, decurved near the apex. Petal margins decurved. Lateral sepals tightly embracing the galea". That means you have a very blunt nose on the "hood". Contrast that with the long pointed dorsal sepal on Diplodium laxum, from yesterday's posting.

A classic "Little Dumpy" - Diplodium truncatum

but it is a "red" form.

All the plants we saw at Bungonia were of this colour form.