Orange

The things we do for a blip! Pouring with rain today (no blue sky) but its nice to have rain once in a while, except when you are trying to cross to a centre reservation in the middle of a busy road where there is a spectacular row of Banksia Bushes (Above)

There are 173 Species of Banksia (all have different shaped & coloured cones) all but one occur naturally only in Australia.
The fruits of the Banksia (called follicles) are not really a cone, true cones are only produced by Conifers.
The flower head is made up of hundreds of tiny flowers clustered together they start at the bottom and work there way up o the top of the head, then becoming totally ORANGE, we have to wait a few more weeks for that here.

The Banksia victoriae, commonly known here in W.A as the
Woolly ORANGE Banksia, can be found from the Southwest East of Albany to the North of Kalbarri W.A
The cones are around 17cm high and up to 13cm wide.

The Banksia was named by Sir Joseph Banks from London he was an English Naturalist, Botanist and patron of the natural sciences.
He sailed with Captain James Cook's first voyage on the ship H.M.S Endeavour, 1768-1771.
(Our children learnt Australian History, in school, we can blame them for this info, we learnt a lot from them)
Banks' house became the Office of the Zoological Society Of London. For any Londoners out there.