For a brief window over the summer months in lutruwita / Tasmania’s alpine plateaus, one of the most iconic species of the regions bursts into flower: Richea scoparia. Colloquially known as simply Scoparia, it occasionally goes by another much less appealing name — Bushwalker’s Nightmare.
With sharp, stiff blades set behind the ephemeral bloom, most of the year it lays in wait to slice unsuspecting ankles as they brush past. Here, under a rising partial moon and the first traces of Milky Way for the year, it fluoresces brightly in a range of colours under multispectral light.