Lockdown has given me time to flick through my seemingly limitless camera roll of bushwalking photos and one particular journey has caught my imagination.

A larger (20 mm) Actinotis forsythii with feathery bracts on Narrow Neck PlateauAll photos by the author

50 | BWA October 2021

The thumb shows the size of the delicate stem of a tiny specimen

I am fortunate to walk on Darug, Gundungurra and Wiradjuri country (also known as Blue Mountains NP, Newnes Plateau and Kanangra-Boyd NP) and spent a good part of 2020 hunting for the usually elusive pink flannel flower (Actinotis forsythii).

I saw my first pink flannel the year I joined the Upper Blue Mountains Bushwalking Club (hereafter, the Upper Blueys) on Newnes Plateau after the 2013 fires. It was one small, tiny plant amongst a blackened scree. The leader enthused how rare it was and how lucky we were to see it. It may never happen again! With the huge 2019-20 fires, I was sure we might get another glimpse and so the hunt began.

In October 2020, a club trip headed out near Jinki Ridge and we had a first sighting. A single small tuft hidden amongst banksia skeletons. With time on my hands, I knew there must be more and considered likely sights. Soon Ikara Head, Dobbs Drift, and Goochs Crater were all full and then came the mass flowering at Narrow Neck. In contrast to my previously solo wanders along

Glenraphael Drive I now required a high-vis vest to avoid being hit by an onslaught of eager photographers on what was clearly the “Flannel-flower freeway”.

But still, there are always plenty of other places to explore and in doing so, these tiny flowers have taught me so much about geology and botany. I would like to make it clear, that I am a novice at both, and it is only through slow and frequent walking, rampant curiosity and the generosity and patience of my fellow walkers that I have a rudimentary understanding of either.

What I found was intriguing. At each site, this one species of flower had many variations. Some had many petal-like bracts, some only a few, bracts varied in colour from pale pink to a deep magenta, pale green and cream. Some had bracts that alternated in colour and some were a single colour. The centre (flowers) also varied in colour from a paler pink to a deep magenta, and in some cases formed like conjoined twins, surrounded by an odd assortment of bracts.

BWA October 2021 | 51

Actinotis gibbonsii, Kanangra-Boyd NP

At one site near Mount Hay, a particular outcrop grew in a daisy formation with many flower heads (a compound umbel). I am fortunate that my rampant curiosity was entertained by a few other fellow members of the Upper Blueys who graciously shared photos of their own sightings.

My hunt for variety continued from October 2020 to March 2021 across all the areas fellow enthusiasts had identified. The lesser flannel flower (Actinotis minor) was also in abundance and caused much discussion, as many of these blended seamlessly with the pink flannels, particularly around De Faur Head, where bracts and flowers on the tiny flannels also came in pale pink, green and cream.

My only lament as autumn days grew shorter was that I had yet to see Actinotis gibbonsii. A tiny, tufted herb up to 10 mm with small green bracts. My inquiries of “those in the know” told me I’d left it too late. The only sighting had been around Newnes and even then, you really needed a magnifying glass to spot it.

So I shelved my hunt for another season, and began exploring possible flora for an upcoming club camp in Kanangra-Boyd NP,

having settled on paper daisies I thought I was set. On Day 3, our erstwhile leader took us out around the boulders near a trig point, an easy walk after a few days of Kanangra “hills”, and a wander back. Tiny daisies had sprung up in all the hollows and I wandered off to take a closer look.

“Oh my god!” I shrieked. The poor walk leader thought I had woken a dozy tiger snake. I had just found an entire field of the tiny Actinotis gibbonsii. The hunt for pink was complete.

Finding and photographing the flannel flower was really the bonus of my excursions, the real joy was in being out on tracks, navigating to places mentioned by others and thinking about the geology and terrain as to where the flowers might be and why.