Native Autumn Blossom

Flowers have spoken to me more than I can tell in written words.  They are the hieroglyphics of angels, loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.  ~Lydia M. Child

One could be forgiven for thinking there are no flowers blossoming in Autumn along our pathway whether walked upon or driven along.  Where leaves remain on the evergreen, it all does look so very green.  While some may spot the yellow wattle it certainly does not spring out from its hiding place to greet us with bright blossoming smiles.

Until you look closely...

Hidden away, amongst the lovely green leaves, is such beauty.  Some rarely seen, even in Australia where these flowers are native.

The pincushion flower, the Hakea Laurina, holds a special place in my heart.  My mother planted a hakea tree right outside my window and it grew in place for many years.  I think I cried when she cut it down, at least inside if not seen.  You see as a child it had taken a place in my heart I never thought could become void.  I assumed the blossom would always remain.  We do that as children, don't we.  We love something without realising there is a chance it might ever be lost, thus not celebrating its presence, its rarity, its beauty.  We take it for granted with wonderfully innocent, gay abandonment.

Now the Hakea has resumed a special place in my life, in this location.  I delight in sharing it with my girls.  I wonder what the fairies might be creating today with this lovely collection of very soft pins?

As a child my mother told me of the fairies who drank from gumnut fairy cups at toadstool tables at the bottom of my garden.  Yet they were not these delightful pink gum blossoms so prolific here in South Australia.  Gum blossoms of my childhood were cream and white.  (A little like this one.) I still marvel at this bright pink colour and wonder if my girls feel the same sense of wonder as we collect them as gifts for friends, for new fairy hats before they become fairy cups after the petals wilt, for looking for tiny fairies within, for counting the ants which crawl out, for tickling.

Now here, the grevillea, such beauty hidden amongst the bushy leaves. Yet its location is known exactly by the bees and the honeyeaters who gather and nourish themselves.  Some might consider the bush quite scraggly (I think that is perhaps why there were none in the garden of my childhood) yet its simple beauty is stunning.  It's hard to look closely as the bees are prolific yet its delicate shapely form of lines and of curves, so graceful, so feminine, so pretty.

There are certainly more...perhaps for another day.

Oh that I might always see Your beauty.