Bald Island Marlock
This small mallee-type tree grows only along the southern coast and islands of Western Australia near Two Peoples Bay and Esperance. Once reserved for viewing by the hardiest outback traveller, it now can be brought into a city living room as a cut flower between August and November. It is magnificent in all its stages. The slim green finger-like buds are interesting enough as they are. But after a couple of weeks they slip off their woody caps (which can be saved for use in potpourris) to reveal a spectacular burst of bright green flowers, which also last another week or two. Later, the massive dried cone can be used in a dried flower arrangement.
To make this studio shot, I wanted to highlight the delicate chartreuse colour of the flowers, so I used a contrasting colour of background paper, in this case a toasty orange. To emphasise the flowers even more, I used the old studio photographer’s technique of throwing a light source onto the centre of the background.
