Rainfall brings 'super bloom' of Sturt's desert pea to outback SA

A perfect storm of weather conditions has seen South Australia's north erupt into a sea of colour with a super bloom of Sturt's desert peas.

Unprecedented Bloom

"We're looking at three or four times the average [rain totals for the region]," Flinders and Outback Parks and Wildlife manager, Phillip Strachan, said. He said the wildflowers had arrived early and were continuing to bloom en masse about the Flinders Ranges — the most rangers had seen in the area since 1974.

"It's like something out of Scotland. It's phenomenal," Mr Strachan said.

Park rangers say it is the most Sturt's desert peas they have seen in the area since 1974.

"I've never seen anything like it. They're everywhere." "I don't think I've seen a more beautiful flower. It depends on what you're into, but I just reckon it's an absolute cracker looking flower."

Blooms Across the Outback

Further east, the peas have also taken over paddocks and fields on the border of South Australia and New South Wales.

Zanna Gale, who runs a sheep station 270 kilometres north of Broken Hill, said the flowers were particularly outstanding this year. Ms Gale and her family have been documenting the array of flowers in shades of white, purple and pink, which they had previously never seen.

"We haven't seen them in the house paddock like this ever before," she said. "It looks amazing — it's unbelievable."

Rare Colour Variations

The Adelaide Botanic Gardens' senior horticulture curator Matt Coulter said the variations were unusual, estimating the traditional red and black flower accounted for about 99 per cent of sightings.

"It doesn't happen a lot, but because it's such a big flowering thing happening this year, we're actually starting to see some quite different colours," he said. "To see these variations is … really quite incredible, you might just see one or two flowers within a big patch of the red and black ones, but they really stand out."

He said the Sturt's desert pea seeds could stay dormant for "many years" in arid land until the conditions were right to grow.

"To the north of our state, we've had the most rain we've had in probably about 52 years since 1974, so all that moisture actually helps with the germination," he said.

Growing the Flowers

Mr Coulter recently returned from a trip to the Flinders Ranges to see the flowers in the wild.

"It's a real super bloom going on this year and to see whole hillsides of them flowering … for me it was a bucket list thing to see for sure," he said.

The Adelaide Botanic Garden grows the plant from seed collected in Roxby Downs in 1997.

"It's a really important plant to us because it's our state flora emblem of South Australia and it has been ever since the 1960s when our director at the time put it forward to become a floral emblem," Mr Coulter said.

But for green thumbs wanting to try their hand at growing the species away from its desert home, Mr Coulter warns it can be a painstaking process.

"Every single one of the seeds that we propagate, we actually look at it under a microscope and take a little nick out of it so they all will germinate at the same time, and they can germinate within two or three days by doing this technique called scarification," he said.

"The funny thing is they actually like moisture, but they just don't like it to be around the roots, so you need that moisture to be able to move away," he said.

"But the biggest killer for them is any humidity because they come from a very arid, dry environment."

Despite the challenge, Mr Coulter did concede that the pay-off was well worth it when the flower came to fruition.

"They almost look fake, they're just so perfect," he said.