The Death of Dasypodia Selenophora and thus Consider the Lilies in the Field.....

Why was I so upset this morning to find the beautiful Dasypodia Selenophora dead on the floor ? It had been fluttering through the sitting room all last night. Was it watching some old DVD with us as there was nothing worth watching on the TV.? I'd like to think that is what made it give up the ghost, the sheer boredom of  it all. To my horror though, it appears I trod on it in the dark of night as I wandered through the house without a torch. Brian said he had seen it on the floor as he uses a torch on his wanderings.
I love the moth as it is such a beautiful creature

and at night it has this lovely habit of fluttering against the windows , softly softly, it is like a faint whispering on the air. When I moved up to my Watervale cottage in the mid eighties and had to get used to sleeping on my own, this whispering kept me awake all night as I was conjuring up all sorts of scenarios in my
alone mind on my first night there.....and it was such a relief at first light to see it was this beautiful moth. We used to call it a wood moth but this is incorrect as it is better known as Old Lady Moth.Hence the Latin name as at least we all know what exactly we are talking about.

I could get very interested in the subject as there is a huge variety of moths in South Australia alone! There are also daytime moths, did you know that?
And so to the lilies of the fields.....
On the left is the beautiful white Belladonna lily
at least we think it is a Belladonna as it arises out of the barren ground with the first rains like the pink Naked Ladies by the gate. They are better known as the Amaryllis lily. It never ceases to amaze me what nature will come up with, the ground looks dry as chips and a little rain brings

up these glorious blooms. The bulbs get no looking after by us, they sit in the ground hibernating ( or is that aestivating.....) all summer
and how sensible is that!! and then decide to grace our gardens with their presence, to be admired and loved after the conditions are right for them.
I particularly like the Jacobean lilies which are Sprekelias. Their brilliant red flowers show up from a long way off and they love being in clumps.

They are wonderful cut flowers as well and will last quite a while inside. Their form is just so beautiful and elegant, no wonder they were copied a lot in embroideries.I was thinking especially of crewel work which was so popular in the 18th Century.
The next lily to appear will be the Candelabra Lily or Brunsvigia Josephinae. They are really impressive, standing five feet tall and a huge rosette of flowers but they will need more rain first.

All this blogging I do has its beneficial effects in that it makes me use dictionaries ( I would have spelled so many words wrong ) and also all other reference books to look up what the names are of Plants, birds, insects, etc etc. and then there is always the Web , it is astounding what information is available to us now....