Slowly walking along a track in bushland just outside Hobart, Aimee Bliss searches the edge of a dry forest for some of Tasmania's most fascinating plants.
This time of year, many of the state's orchids and carnivorous plants are out in full force.
"Look," Aimee says as she points out a a type of carnivorous plant called a sundew.
Poking out from the bracken is a tangle of tiny, pink flowers. Just behind them the glistening leaves of the sundew are visible.
"It has little bugs stuck in its sticky bits. It's going to digest them and get all the nutrients from them … amazing."
Aimee, an ecologist, loves to spend her free time scouring local forests for her favourite plants.
She is on the lookout for flesh-eating plants as well as orchids, many of which are also bursting into bloom at this time of year.
A little further on she spots a big patch of bird orchids. At first, they do not seem to be flowering and she recognises them by their distinctive pair of leaves lying flat to the ground.
"Wait a second, there's a flower," she points, "ah, so cute".
The flowers are named for their resemblance to baby birds begging for food.
Their wide mouths bobbing in the breeze look bizarre to human eyes — but for male wasps they are irresistible and ensnaring.
Late spring is a treacherous time to be in the Tasmanian forest … if you are an insect.
For the tiny flying and crawling critters of the bushland, danger and deception are everywhere.
Orchids that seduce insects
There are more than 1,700 species of orchids in Australia, including more than 200 in Tasmania, explains Katharina Nargar, who leads the orchid research program at the Australian Tropical Herbarium.
"Over 90 per cent of Australian orchid species occur nowhere else on the planet," Dr Nargar says.
Some Australian orchids lure insects to pollinate them in a traditional way by making nectar for insects to drink. Other orchids are far more deceptive.
"What's special about orchids is that they found a mechanism to have really efficient pollination," Dr Nargar says.
"They bundle up the pollen in packages and the packages have a little bit of a glue on them so that they can attach a whole package to the pollinator."
These pollen packages mean "they put all their eggs in one basket".
If they are going to successfully spread their genetics, which is what pollen does, they need to ensure the pollinator visits another flower of the same species quick smart.
Bird orchids up their chances by forming "tight relationships" with specific wasp species, Dr Nargar says.
Male wasps buzzing around the forest, looking for an eligible female among the leaf litter, often use her scent to discover her.
Unfortunately for the male, the bird orchids have evolved to produce just that scent. Not only that, but they also have a series of raised dark bumps on their petals that look like a female wasp.
The male will land to try to mate with the flower; in the frenzy the packet of pollen will get fixed to the wasp.
He then moves on, continuing his search for a mate, but if his next lover is another orchid, it will be the flower which has spread its genetics, not him.
"Australia is especially rich in deceptive orchids compared to the rest of the world," Dr Nargar says.
They form highly specialised relationships; often one orchid species is pollinated by a specific insect.
It's this specialisation that Aimee admires as she spots orchids in the forest.
"It's like uncovering a treasure, they're so delicate and highly specialised," she says.
Carnivorous plants
Staring at another tangle of carnivorous plants, Aimee says "they're doing something that's very unusual for a plant, they're almost acting like an animal in that they're hunting".
Botanist Laura Skates explains that Australia is a "hot spot" for carnivorous plants, with about 250 flesh-eating plants calling the continent home out of an estimated 800 species worldwide.
Australia's poor soils have set the scene for carnivorous plants to evolve multiple times on our ancient continent, because plants that can get their nutrients from prey have an advantage in these environments.
In Tasmania there are two genre, or groups, of these plants: the Utricularia, better known as bladderworts and the Drosera, otherwise known as sundews.
The glistening starbursts on the sundew that Aimee found were a modified leaf, explains Dr Skates.
"Those sticky tentacles can wrap around the insects that come into contact with them," she says.
"There are glands on the surface of the leaf which release digestive enzymes and break down the prey so that the plant can then absorb the nutrients."
Sundews also need insects to pollinate them which creates a "pollinator-prey conflict", she says.
"They need insects for two different purposes: one for pollination and one for nutrition."
The tall sundew spotted by Aimee solved this conflict by having its flowers on long spindly stalks, far away from their sticky leaves.
