Waratah, Telopea speciosissima
Port Jackson Painter
Watercolour, c1788 - 1797, © Natural History Museum
Watling collection
The Waratah has been the official floral emblem of New South Wales since 1962.
Sir James Smith (1759–1828), a distinguished botanist and founder of the Linnean Society, wrote in 1793: ‘The most magnificent plant which the prolific soil of New Holland affords is, by common consent, both of Europeans and Natives, the Waratah. It is moreover a favourite with the latter, upon account of a rich honeyed juice which they sip from its flowers.’
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The Art of the First Fleet book
Enjoy rare watercolours, ink and pencil drawings and some of the only visual records of the lives of the indigenous Eora people of Australia.
These beautiful illustrations, by artists on board the First Fleet, document the sights witnessed by the first Europeans to colonise Australia.