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Weirdly Wonderful Plants of Australia
Unlike other continents which are linked together, the Australian land mass floated around in isolation for the last 53 million years. As a result, not just the animals evolved into biological enigmas, but the plants did too. Eucalypts, dryandras, banksias, grevilleas, hakeas and many others all have strange-sounding names and just as strange shapes, habits and other peculiarities.
There is a family of plants called Proteaceae (including the Proteas of South Africa) which go back 100 or so million years to when Africa and Australia were part of Gondwanaland. These are hit-you-in-the-face sort of plants. They are big, bold and dramatic. Only recently are they starting to find a place as cut flowers in the home. Being made up of tens or even hundreds of individual little flowers, they are loaded with nectar. Birds, possums, insects all love to feed on them as did the aboriginal people who used to soak them in water for a sweet drink.
Other strange plants are the swollen Bottle tree which stores water in the trunk. Then there is the huge Bunya Bunya with its enormous cones full of delicious pine nuts. Unlike the traditional cooking pine nut, each one in the Bunya cone is the size of a brazil nut.
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