Banksia epica is a shrub that grows on the south coast of Western
Australia. A spreading bush with wedge-shaped serrated leaves and large
creamy-yellow flower spikes, it grows as a spreading bushy shrub with
many branches, from 30 centimetres to 3½ metres (1–11½ ft) tall.
It has grey, fissured bark, and dark green, wedge-shaped leaves, 1½ to
5 centimetres (½–2 in) long. Flowers occur in Banksia's
characteristic "flower spike", an inflorescence made up of hundreds of
pairs of flowers densely packed in a spiral round a woody axis.
B. epica's flower spike is yellow or cream-yellow in colour,
cylindrical, 9 to 17 centimetres (3½–6½ inches) tall and around
6 centimetres (2½ inches) in diameter. It is known only from two
isolated populations in the remote south east of the state, near the
western edge of the Great Australian Bight. Both populations occur
amongst coastal heath on cliff-top dunes of siliceous sand. One of the
most recently described Banksia species, it was probably seen by Edward
John Eyre in 1841, but was not collected until 1973, and was only
recognised as a distinct species in 1988. There has been very little
research on the species since.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksia_epica>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
759:
Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu departed for Chengdu, staying with his
fellow poet Pei Di, where he composed poems about life in his thatched
cottage.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu>
1818:
"Silent Night" (audio featured), a Christmas carol by Josef
Mohr and Franz Gruber, was first performed in a church in Austria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night>
1913:
Seventy-three people were crushed to death in a stampede after
someone falsely yelled "fire" at a crowded Christmas party in Calumet,
Michigan, US.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Hall_disaster>
1953:
On New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge
was damaged by a lahar and collapsed beneath a passenger train, killing
151 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangiwai_disaster>
1973:
The United States Congress granted Washington, D.C. home rule,
allowing the residents to elect their own mayor and city council.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_home_rule>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
bullshot:
1. A cocktail made from vodka and beef bouillon.
2. (neologism, video games) A phony screenshot created for promotional
purposes.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bullshot>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
 If what distinguishes the greatest poets is their powerful
and profound application of ideas to life, which surely no good critic
will deny, then to prefix to the word ideas here the term moral makes
hardly any difference, because human life itself is in so preponderating
a degree moral. It is important, therefore, to hold fast to this: that
poetry is at bottom a criticism of life; that the greatness of a poet
lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life — to
the question, How to live. Morals are often treated in a narrow and
false fashion, they are bound up with systems of thought and belief
which have had their day, they are fallen into the hands of pedants and
professional dealers, they grow tiresome to some of us … the best cure
for our delusion is to let our minds rest upon that great and
inexhaustible word life, until we learn to enter into its meaning. A
poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life;
a poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference
towards life.
--Matthew Arnold
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Matthew_Arnold>