The Conversation

Waratah is an icon of the Aussie bush (and very nearly our national emblem)

Author: Jacob Krauss, Graduate Student, UNSW

Waratah flowers stand out vividly in the bush.Tim J Keegan/Flickr, CC BY-SA

On one of my first field trips as a young student, searching in sweltering September heat for banksia trees in the bush around Sydney, my eye was caught by a flash of remarkable crimson. Trudging over the red dust, we saw the beautiful waratah flower.

The cone-shaped flower...

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