Until now, every episode in this series has featured a “local” hero.
In most cases, the relevant flowering plant has been (and will be, in the remaining few episodes) one that naturally occurs only in some particular parts of southwest Western Australia.
Today’s exception is an interloper from the Mediterranean basin.
You are looking at the only member of its genus.
Bellardia trixago is hemiparasitic; it does extract nutrients from the roots of nearby plants, but rarely to devastating effect; for the most part it “feeds itself”.
It is variously known as “Bellardia”, as “Mediterranean lineseed”, and (inaccurately) as “Mediterranean linseed”.
This upright, hairy, attractive, hardy annual has “colonised” – or “been introduced to” – many parts of the world that have a Mediterranean-ish climate.
In some places it has proved invasive, and is regarded/classified as a noxious weed.
Happily, it appears that in WA’s southwest, Bellardia has “settled in”, but not mounted a “takeover bid”..
In WA it is not a declared weed/pest plant.
Click here to discover a little more, and this to see where it grows in WA.
It also grows in other parts of southern Australia.