Flower Friday - Midge Orchid

You may well think it's a futile exercise attempting to weed a National Park some 835 hectares (just over 2,000 acres).  In one sense it is, but in another sense our thin orange line (I say orange because we wear hi-viz vests) is all that's between virgin bush, and over-run scrub. 

And we don't attempt to weed all of it.  Much of the valley area is given over to ovals, tennis courts, picnic areas and the like.  And some parts would need a small army to attack the blackberry, olive, ash and other incredibly dense weedy scrub.

So we just tackle the very sensitive areas to make room for the orchids, grasses and other native plants to grow.

I can say "we" now because I actually went weeding this morning for the first time. Rather to my surprise, I enjoyed it - it's only about 90 minutes of actual work (and that was quite enough, thank you).

My entry for Flower Friday is one of the species we are trying to protect.  The Midge Orchid (Corunastylis sp. (Adelaide Hills), is not rare, but it is threatened, and its natural habitat is dying out due to land clearance and development.

So you can see that the Belair National park is an incredibly important haven for these tiny jewels.

The flower is no more than 5mm (I specialise in the small stuff), and I've put the flower spike of around 6 cms tall into extras so you can see the context..