West-East
Michael J. Leach
Luscious Beautiful
blushing spider orchids kangaroo apples
(Caladenia lorea) (Solanum aviculare)
spread leggy pink petals bear purple flowers & red-
on a Western Australian orange fruit amidst this east coast
sandplain. rainforest.
Bristling Flamboyant
red toothbrushes firewheel trees
(Grevillea hookeriana) (Stenocarpus sinuatus)
brush passers-by boast scarlet spokes
in the depths of a dry in the heart of the humid
summer. tropics.
Upstanding Elegant
scarlet banksias bleeding-heart trees
(Banksia coccinea) (Homalanthus populifolius)
raise up squat, cylindrical warmly welcome weekend
pincushions in a native visitors in a native
backyard. front yard.
Hardy Hardy
tubada plants burrawang plants
(Melaleuca phonicea) (Macrozamia communis)
grow green-blue leaves & red- grow green fern-like leaves
purple bottlebrush flowers & cantaloupe-coloured, pineapple-
beside this west coast shaped cones amidst this east coast
watercourse. rainforest.
Fiery A rosy
lemon-scented myrtle Sydney rose
responding to its responding to its
botanical name—Darwinia botanical name—Boronia
citriodora—is just as lemony serrulate—is just as sweet
and significantly more and dramatically more
taxonomic. taxonomic.
The red-and-green kangaroo paw The New South Wales waratah
(Anigozanthos manglesii) (Telopea speciosissima)
is blossoming with long, curved is blossoming with a fluoro red
mammalian fingers, its morphology flower arrangement, its morphology
singularly spectacular singularly spectacular
& emblematic.
‘West-East’ first appeared in the Plant Poetics issue of Plumwood Mountain.
