No. 213. 
Tel o pea speciosissima R.Br. 
The Waratah. 
(Family PROTEACEyE.) 
Botanical description. Genus, Telopea. (See Part XLIV, p. 69.) 
Botanical description. Species, T. speciosissima R.Br., in Trans Linn. Soc., x, 
198 (1811); Prod. 388. Also the same author's Proteacscc Nova, p. 32. 
A stout erect glabrous shrub of 6 to 8 feet. 
Leaves cuncatc-oblong or almost obovatc, 5 to 10 in. long, mostly toothed in the upper part, 
tapering into a rather long petiole, coriaceous, penniveincd with the midrib prominent, a few 
rarely quite entire. 
Flowers crimson, in a dense ovoid or globular head or raceme of about 3 in. diamjtcr. 
Involucral brads coloured, ovate-lanceolate, the inner ones 2 to 3 in. long, the outer ones few and 
small, surrounded by a dense tuft of floral leaves like the stem ones, but smaller and more 
entire. 
Bracts under the pairs of flowers very short. 
Pedicels thick, recurved, J to J inch long. 
Perianth glabrous, nearly 1 inch long. 
Ovules 12 to 16. 
Fruit recurved, 3 to 4 in. long. 
Seeds 10 to 20, the nucleus broad, obliquely quadrate, the wing obliquely truncate, -J to above 
i inch long (B. Fl. v, 534). 
See also Meissner in DC. Prod., xiv, 446. It is 'figured in Maund and Henslow's 
' The Botanist," Vol. ii, No. 71, but the plate is not very good. A representation 
of this handsome flower is also in Reichenbach's Fl. Exot. t. 159. 
There is a coloured figure, on a reduced scale, in rny " Illustrated Flowering 
Plants and Ferns," Part 1. 
Botanical Name. Telopea, already explained (see Part XLIV, p. 70); 
speciosissima, the superlative of speciosa, the Latin word for beautiful or handsome. 
Vernacular Names." Warratau " was one of the very earliest spellings. 
By many people this plant is known as the " Tulip " or " Native Tulip." It bears 
neither affinity nor resemblance to the true Tulip, and the name is probably a 
corruption of Tclopea, 
