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Telopea aspera
Also called New England Waratah
Telopea aspera, commonly known as Gibraltar Range waratah, is a plant in the family Proteaceae. It grows as a woody shrub to 3 metres (10 ft) high with leathery rough leaves and bright red flower heads known as inflorescences—each composed of hundreds of individual flowers. It is endemic to the New England region in New South Wales in Australia. It was formally described as a species by botanists Peter Weston and Mike Crisp in 1995, separated from its close relative Telopea speciosissima by its rough foliage and preference for drier habitat. Unlike its better known relative, Telopea aspera has rarely been cultivated.
Telopea aspera has been rarely cultivated, though it is possible that some garden specimens thought to be T. speciosissima may in fact have been this species. Plants have fared poorly at Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan, perishing in summer, though the reason for this is not known. Cultivation of T. aspera at Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens has been more successful. The flowers and foliage are attractive horticultural features.
Gibraltar Range waratah is endemic to northern New South Wales, where it is restricted to the Gibraltar Range. Found in dry sclerophyll forest, it is a component of three plant communities within Gibraltar Range: the first is composed of Gibraltar ash (Eucalyptus olida), privet-leaved stringybark (Eucalyptus ligustrina) and diehard stringybark (Eucalyptus cameronii) and occurs on slopes and crests, while the second is composed of Gibraltar ash, large-fruited blackbutt (Eucalyptus pyrocarpa) and needlebark stringybark (Eucalyptus planchoniana) and occurs on ridges and north and west-facing slopes. Both are shrubby to open woodland communities found on skeletal to shallow soil on granite. The third community is a more sheltered one of New England blackbutt (Eucalyptus campanulata) and diehard stringybark found on lower slopes on sandy or loam soils.
Braidwood Waratah · Gippsland Waratah · New South Wales Waratah · Tasmanian Waratah · Waratah
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Telopea aspera by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
