X is for Xanthorrhoea!

Last year I wrote a post about Xanthorrhoea, using my only reference guide at the time to try to determine the species. A few comments suggested I had incorrectly named the plant as Xanthorrhoea Resinosa when it was more likely to be Xanthorrhoea Minor. The feedback was probably correct. However, by the time I could check, the flowers were all finished. With this in mind, I have taken care to photograph a range of Xanthorrhoea flowers this November.

I’ve been amazed at the difference in size, texture, colour, and shape of the flower spikes. Along with providing a striking presence in the bushland, they also provide food for wildlife. I’ve divided my photos into four groups for this post; Plant Size, Flower Spike Colour, Open Flowers, and Flowers as Food, so please scroll down to see the full array of images.

Plant Size:

Over the Spring, many of the Australian wild flowers I have tried to photograph are tiny, so when the Xanthorrhoea flower spikes began to appear, I set out with my camera with much relish. Finally I would have something substantial to photograph. Instead of trying to zoom in close enough to a tiny fringe lily, I found I had the opposite problem. How do I best show this plant when the flowers are so large? The only way is bit by bit, feature by feature.

As I did this, I realised we had at least two, perhaps three species of Xanthorrhoea. I still don’t know enough to identify them correctly, but these photographs show some of the major size differences.

Flower Spikes — In contrast, this plant is quite large with leaves around 90 cm long, and flower spikes well over 2 meters high.

Flower Spike Colour:

I’ve also noticed that some of the plants have brown flower spikes while others have green flower spikes:

Open Flowers:

A selection of Xanthorrhoea flowers shows how truly beautiful they are:

Flower spikes tower above the bracken — Rising high above the bracken and native shrubs, the flower spikes are spectacular and exotic.

Individual flowers on a spike — Many individual star-shaped flowers blossom along the flower spike.

Texture of unopened buds — The round, knobbly buds of the unopened flowers are also fascinating.

Fluffy flower spike — This fully opened flower spike looks fluffy.

Perfumed blooms? — I’m told that some of the Xanthorrhoea flowers have a perfume, but I have not been able to detect this on ours. However, I’m often not very good at detecting perfume.

Flower as Food:

Finally, the Xanthorrhoea flowers seem to provide food for a range of wildlife species:

PPartially nibbled flower spike. — Partially nibbled flower spike.

Something larger seems to like nibbling these flowers. Perhaps it is a possum, a wallaby or even a smaller marsupial.

Butterfly on Xanthorrhoea — Last year I recall flocks of butterflies around the flower spikes. This year, being cooler, they are few, but just as beautiful.

Xanthorhea Caterpillar — I found that many Xanthorrhoea flower spikes hosted numbers of these unidentified larvae. In a future post I will try to identify the species.

Bee feeding from the flowers. — The rich nectar attracts many insects, in this case a bee.

I hope you found the Xanthorrhoea as fascinating to look at as I did. Write and tell me what you think of this flower. Even better, if you can help to identify which species we have, I would be extremely grateful.