91. Ephemera

The Australian bushfires of last summer had very few positive effects, but above you can see one. These are pink flannel flowers, Actinotus forsythii, which have been blooming over the past month in countless numbers on high ridges in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. The last time they were seen up here, the rangers say, was around 1957. The seeds from back then (Sputnik 1, Khrushchev, Eisenhower…) have waited till now to produce these flowers.

Pink flannel flowers are “fire ephemerals”;...