This small community of miniature short-lived plants is growing in a moss patch not much more than 15 centimetres across.

It can be covered with an outstretched hand. Within this are miniature daisies, lilies, succulents, grasses, sedges and more.

Sheets of moss on top of rock have their own special range of dwarf plants, providing a rich variety of specialised plants for study.

The most prominent plant in the centre and centre-right of this photo is the bright green common bow-flower, a small annual daisy plant only 30 to 40mm tall. Other species are shorter than 20mm.

Some of the lesser-known species in this patch are stylewort, mudwort, purslane, chickweed, St John's wort, stonecrops, yellow star, small vanilla lily and bedstraw - all tiny and all dependent on the moist moss.

Nearby, in much larger expanses of moss, grow at least another 20 species, probably more.

Together they make up a specialised "moss flora" of miniature plants that grow each winter and spring.

Because there is no room for significant root structure below the moss, all of them are adapted to cope with the conditions of the mossy rockface.

They will all be shrivelled and gone in a couple of months, when the rock gets hot and dry.

The moss will be dry and crisp, and the dwarf plants in the rockface garden will be unidentifiable.

The small chocolate lily and the yellow star have tubers that withstand the harsh summer and will sprout again when the moss becomes moist again next autumn or winter, but most of the others will start again from seed.

In this case, the moss is growing on granite. Like other rock. it heats significantly through summer. It is a wonder that any part of any plant survives, either as spore, seed or tuber.

The moss itself somehow survives as foliage that comes to life again with a light soak of rain. These moss beds take many years - probably hundreds - to form. Every so often we hear the term "fragile environment" used, but these almost soil-less moss gardens - so botanically rich - are among the most fragile of all.

A recent sighting of two wedge-tailed eagle chicks in a nest not far from Ballarat is good news.

The large nest is in a dead tree in a small clearing in otherwise forested country.

The chicks appeared to be a couple of weeks old, although they were not easy to see clearly.

Can you please tell me what this delightful flower is? They were numerous in dry bushland near Campbelltown last weekend.

F.N., Invermay.

These are musky caladenias, sometimes also known as musky caps. The first part of their name comes from the musky scent. Most stems carry only a couple of flowers, so six on one of the stems pictured is unusual.

The musky caladenia is widespread in all sorts of forest in the region, although it tends to like drier sites such as rises and ridges. Sometimes, the backs of the flowers have a maroon tinge, and this sometimes extends to the tips of the petals as well. Your flowers at Campbelltown are probably a couple of weeks earlier than those south of Ballarat. In damper or higher country they are still flowering in late November.