Telopea Speciosissima - Symbolic and Artistic References

Symbolic and Artistic References

The New South Wales waratah featured prominently in the folklore of the Darug and Tharawal people in the Sydney basin and Gandangara people to the southwest. A Dreamtime legend from the Eora tells of a female Wonga Pigeon searching for her husband who has been lost while out hunting. A hawk attacks and wounds her, and she hides in a waratah bush. Her husband calls and as she struggles in the bush her blood turns the white waratah blooms red. A tale from the Burragorang Valley tells of a beautiful maiden named Krubi, who wore a red cloak of rock wallaby adorned with the feathers of the Gang-gang Cockatoo. She fell in love with a young warrior who did not return from battle. Grief-stricken, she died, and up from the ground grew the first waratah. The Dharawal people regarded it as a totem, using it in ceremonies and timing ceremonies to its flowering.

The striking form of the New South Wales waratah became a popular motif in Australian art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and was incorporated in art nouveau designs of the time. Matchboxes, paperweights and especially tins have been decorated with the flower. Arnott's often used the waratah as an alternative to their parrot logo on biscuit and cake tins from the early 1900s. Shelleys soft drinks, established in 1893 in Broken Hill, also displayed it on their label. The French artist Lucien Henry, who had settled in Sydney in 1879, was a strong proponent of a definitive Australian art style incorporating local flora, particularly the waratah. His most famous surviving work is a triptych stained glass window of Oceania flanked by numerous waratahs overlooking the Centennial Hall in Sydney Town Hall.

In 1925, artist Margaret Preston produced a hand-coloured woodcut depicting waratahs. The species also appeared on an Australian 3 shilling stamp in 1959 designed by botanical illustrator Margaret Jones and a 30c stamp in 1968.

After Australian federation in 1901, the upsurge in nationalism led to the search for an official national floral emblem. The New South Wales waratah was considered alongside the wattle Acacia pycnantha, and debate raged between proponents of the two flowers. The economist and botanist R. T. Baker proposed that the waratah's endemism to the Australian continent made it a better choice than the wattle, as well as the prominence of its flowers. He was nicknamed the "Commander in Chief of the Waratah Armed Forces". The South Australian Evening News also supported the bid, but to no avail.

Decades later, in 1962, Telopea speciosissima was proclaimed as the official floral emblem of New South Wales by the then-governor Sir Eric Woodward, after being used informally for many years. The species has also been adopted by others, including the New South Wales Waratahs rugby union team since the 1880s, and the former department store Grace Bros in a stylised form for their logo in the 1980s. Contemporary clothing designers Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson produced waratah-inspired fabric designs in the 1970s and 1980s during a resurgence of Australian motifs.

From 1956 the annual Waratah Festival was held in Sydney, run by the Sydney Committee. It took place from late October to early November, coinciding with the blooming of the waratahs. It was an important cultural event which included a parade, a popular art competition, beauty contests, exhibitions and performances. A highlight was the Lord Mayor's reception at the Sydney Town Hall for which the floral displays were made of hundreds of waratahs culled by Park Rangers from the national parks.