Large areas of South Australia and New South Wales have been covered by a super bloom of Sturt’s desert peas after rainfall created favourable growing conditions, ABC News Australia reports.
Phillip Strachan, manager of Flinders and Outback Parks and Wildlife, said the region had received three or four times its average rainfall. He said the flowers appeared earlier than usual and were continuing to bloom in large numbers around the Flinders Ranges.
Park rangers described the display as the most Sturt’s desert peas they had seen in the area since 1974. The flowers have also spread across paddocks and fields near the South Australia–New South Wales border, where station owner Zanna Gale said her family had never seen so many in their house paddock.
Although the flowers generally have red petals and a black centre, this year’s display includes pink, white and purple blooms. Matt Coulter, senior horticulture curator at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, said the unusual colours were rarely seen, but had become more noticeable because of the scale of the flowering.
Coulter said the plant’s seeds could remain dormant for many years in arid conditions before germinating when sufficient moisture arrived. He said the recent rainfall had helped trigger germination in northern South Australia, where the area had received its highest rainfall in about 52 years since 1974.
Sturt’s desert pea is South Australia’s state floral emblem. The Adelaide Botanic Gardens grows the species from seed collected in Roxby Downs in 1997, but Coulter said cultivation can be difficult. Seeds are treated individually to promote germination, and the plants require well-aerated soil so moisture does not remain around their roots.
The species is protected, meaning it is illegal to pick the flowers on public land.