Stenocarpus sinuatus

Firewheel Flowers crop

I ride to work through side streets to avoid the busy roads. There’s very little traffic so I spend most of my time looking around and listening to the radio on my phone (headphone cords act as antennae!). I noticed a flower on a tree that I’d never seen before. I made a point of changing the route of my next run to pass it, so I could look at it up close. It’s fascinating.

Several days later I took my camera to work, and stopped by this tree on my way home to take some pictures. I was busily shooting when an older gentleman came up to me from next door with his lawn mower.

When I got home I talked to Ben online, who was at the library working:

 me: I just met the nicest person, taking pictures.
  I was taking pictures of that tree I showed you yesterday
  and he lives nextdoor, and was coming out to edge his lawn.
  he asked me if I was taking pictures of a bird, in which case he’d not start his machine and scare it away.
6:25 PM I said no, I’m just taking pictures of these flowers, they’re so unusual.
  Do you know what they are?
6:26 PM He said, well, I think it’s called a fire wheel tree, but that’s not the real name… the woman who used to live there told me the scientific name more than once, but I can’t remember, I don’t think.
  I thanked him, he went to edging, I went to shoooting.
6:27 PM A bit later he came walking over to me with his edger on idle, and said, this might not be right either, but there’s a tree called the Illawarra Flame Tree, named after the place, Illawarra. That might be it. I don’t know if that’ll help, but maybe you could look them up.
  So I said yes, even if they aren’t scientific names, I’m sure they’ll bring up information online, thank you!
  Then I went back to shooting.
6:28 PM When I was done I asked him if I could take his picture, as the person who told me what the flowers were.
  He said he wasn’t very photogenic, but ok.
  I did, showed him, and he said “you can always delete it.”
  bah.
 me: I rode away, got home, got my camera out of the bag
 me: and discovered I dropped my dragon change bag somewhere while I was getting out a new memory card.
 me: So I got dressed again and rode back to all the places I had been
  and as I rode past him to the tree where I had been taking pictures, he waved me over
6:30 PM and said he knew it had to belong to me! He was going to call the hospital tomorrow to try and return it (we’d chatted about work)
  I like him.
The wonderful Ross

The very nice Ross

While he was edging and I was shooting, a noisy miner did show up to drink some nectar, noise or no noise! It’s not a great picture, but it’s all I’ve got.

Noisy Miner and firewheels

*note: Stenocarpus sinuatus is a tree native to Australia, more frequently found further to the tropical north.

**note: Noisy Miners sure do live up to their name! We have a family living outside our living room window, and they’ve had at least one clutch of young so far. They can lay eggs several times a year (and are veeeeery territorial when they do! They’ll swoop and call and even attack you if you get too close). When the young are fledging, they go through a long phase of experimenting with their voices and cycling through the weirdest most bizarre calls before settling on the more typical adult miner call. It’s been entertaining to listen to!

9 thoughts on “Stenocarpus sinuatus

      • Crazy flowers of so many variations based on alien radial-filament aesthetic. Amazing, is all. And super expensive. Used to buy them at Kerrytown one at a time for ten dollars each. Last a long time.

  1. Hi Adrienne, I just showed this to Dad on my laptop. He chuckled when Ross said, “you can always delete it.” Nice photos and story. Amazing flowers in that tree! Dad’s proud of you, and says he thinks of you often. (me too)

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