On my travels around work this week so far, I’ve come across some things that I like or just find interesting in a plant geek sort of way.

These pretty little flowers are from Liriope muscari, a tough little plant that I see quite often. It is a fairly boring plant until it flowers, which is its moment to shine.

Dietes grandiflora is another tough plant that appears everywhere in Sydney to the point you would think it is a native! It is actually a native of South Africa. I really like the flowers on many species of Dietes, but these are my favourite-I like the fact that they have three colours. Just be careful where you plant them, and enjoy them because you will end up with many of these plants as they spread so easily!

Next up is the fruit of Liquidamber styraciflua, a lovely American tree. The fruits are interesting and I also like the vein patterns on the leaves too.

This seed comes a tree called Araucaria bidwillii, or Bunya Bunya tree, one of many in these huge pine cones that the tree grows. As a native of Australia, it is a slightly quirky but huge tree. I like quite them, but you have to give them space and fence them off when they have their cones-due to the size of them, they can cause serious injury when the drop from the tree!

Finally, I found this spider yesterday. I’m not sure what sort it is, but I like looking at wildlife wherever I go. Being in Australia, this is a relatively small one-I’ve had bigger house spiders at home!