Artwork 32 Sunrise and Moonset Over the Bungle Bungles
Section 22
The Fire-Embracing Proteas of Oz—Waratahs, Grevilleas, Hakeas, Banksias, and Isopogons
Bungle Bungle Range, Purnululu National Park, Western Australia, Western Australia
- 1. Ficus platypoda (native fig trees)
- 2. Grevillea pteridifolia (fern-leaf grevillea)
from the artist
The long narrow leaves—grey-green on top and silvery underneath—give a fern-like appearance to the “fern-leaf grevillea”(Grevillea pteridifolia) which provides a distant secondary focal point for Sunrise and Moonset Over the Bungle Bungles. The golden-orange flowers with brilliant orange curved styles opening at the ends of stems, and in the upper leaf axils, echo in colour and form the spectacular beehive formations behind them. Spinifex surrounds the grevillea.
We rode our mountain bikes into the Bungles in early September (which turned out to be quite hot, but no deterrant to this hardy flowering plant). We slept in the dry sandy creek bed nearby.
Ficus platypoda (“native fig”) is in the foreground in the creek bed, with multiple roots spreading out seeking water. Although the water had gone underground in the “Dry” season, it would return with a vengeance in the “Wet” (November–April) —when myriad caverns and basins are formed by swirling rocks and pebbles as floodwaters sweep along Piccaninny Creek.
