191 
As early as 1793, it was recorded by Smith (" A Specimen of the Botany of New 
Holland ") that the natives made an agreeable repast by sucking the flowers, which 
abound in honey. 
The late Dr. George Bennett has a paper entitled " On variation of Colour in the 
flowers of the Waratah (Telopea speciosissima) and several other indigenous plants of 
New South Wales." (Journ. of Bot. vi, 36). 
This particular Waratah flower was almost an albino, and came from the 
Kurrajong. Such flowers are from time to time found, always rarely. In all cases 
which have come under my notice, the finders have so concealed their plants in the 
hope of selling them for large sums, that I have never had an opportunity of trying them 
under cultivation. Until they are tested in the garden they will have no money value. 
Stem. In the early days of the Colony the smiths used to give the aborigines 
trifles for a supply of the stems of this plant, which they used for twisting round their 
punches and other implements while working heated iron. 
Fruit. The fruit is a follicle. One Waratah'" flower " (composed, of course, 
of a large number of individual flowers) matures, under favourable circumstances, 
twelve to twenty follicles. 
Propagation. Prom seed, wliich readily germinates when fresh. The 
Waratah is a plant which is coming increasingly into favour in private gardens, and 
under cultivation it attains a luxuriance unknown in its wild state. It is one of the 
most gorgeous of all sub-tropical plants under cultivation. Our experience of it is that 
it miy flower the third year from seed. 
A gentleman, whose name I have forgotten, gave me the following figures on 
the blooms on three Waratah plants in his garden 43, 108, 230. 
In a paper by Dr. George Bennett, " The Waratah or Native Tulip-tree of New 
South Wales (Telopea speciosissima)" (Journ. of Bot. iii, 363.), the following passages 
occur : 
The first year the Waratah blossoms it throws out from two or four shoots from each flower-head 
in the second year only two, and in subsequent years only one, or more rarely two. To ascertain the way 
these shoots are produced, it is necessary to procure a flower-head full-blown or just fading, and on looking 
closely among the flowers, from one to two or four shoots will be observed just developing themselves, and 
these will form the branches of the following year, from each of which a flower-head will most likely be 
produced. A knowledge of this fact will explain why the plucking of the flowers destroys the new branches, 
injuring its natural development, and keeping the shrub stunted in growth, and prevents its flowering in 
the ensuing year. The Waratah produces seeds every second year . . . 
In suitable situations, in their wild state, they usually flower when about 4 to 6 feet high, and when 
at that time stripped of their blossoms, they become stunted, devoid of beauty, and so remain until suckers 
are thrown up from the roots, by which flowering branches are reproduced. 
