Close look at natives

By Jim Mynard
WARATAH specialist Graeme Downe will be guest speaker at the next meeting of the Australian Plants Society at Wilson Botanic Park, Princes Highway, Berwick, at 7.45pm on Tuesday, 10 October.
The meeting will be held in the park administrative building.
The plant’s spectacular red flowers can be up to 15 centimetres across which has earned them their aboriginal name of waratah which means ‘seen from afar’.
They are bushy tree like shrubs which have long thick glossy leaves and large bright red flowers.
These make the plants a fantastic feature for the garden, a potted specimen or cut flower.
Mr Downe has been involved in selection and hybridising waratahs for 20 years.
He has developed some new hybrid types and three have gone through the plant breeder rights process.
The Australian Plant Society maintains the native plants in the Wilson Botanic Park car park with many now in full bloom and full of insects and birds.
All are welcome and supper will be served at the conclusion of the evening.