The New South Wales waratah (Telopea speciosissima) is a large shrub in the family Proteaceae. Endemic to New South Wales, Australia, it is the floral emblem of that state. It grows as a shrub to 3–4 m (10–13 ft) high and 2 m (7 ft) wide, with dark green leaves and several stems rising from a pronounced woody base known as a lignotuber. During the spring it has striking large red flowerheads, each made up of hundreds of individual flowers. These are visited by the eastern pygmy possum (Cercartetus nanus), birds such as honeyeaters (Meliphagidae) and insects. T. speciosissima has featured prominently in art, architecture and advertising. No subspecies are recognised, but cultivars with various shades of red, pink and white flowers are commercially grown in several countries as a cut flower. The shrub can be difficult to cultivate in home gardens, requiring good drainage and being vulnerable to fungal disease and pests.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telopea_speciosissima

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1925:

The novel The Great Gatsby by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published by Scribner's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby

1970:

In the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates, Paul McCartney announced his departure from the Beatles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_McCartney

1973:

In the deadliest aviation accident in Swiss history, Invicta International Airlines Flight 435 crashed into a hillside near Hochwald, killing 108 people of 145 on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invicta_International_Airlines_Flight_435

2019:

Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project released the first image of a black hole (depicted), located at the center of the galaxy M87. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_Horizon_Telescope

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

baffle: 1. (transitive) 2. To confuse or perplex (someone) completely; to bewilder, to confound, to puzzle. 3. (archaic) To defeat, frustrate, or thwart (someone or their efforts, plans, etc.); to confound, to foil. 4. (specifically, nautical) Of weather or wind: to hinder or prevent (a ship or its crew) from advancing. 5. (technology) To dampen, muffle, restrain, or otherwise control (a fluid, or waves travelling through a fluid such as light or sound). 6. (obsolete) 7. To deceive or hoodwink (someone); to gull. 8. Followed by away or out: to deprive of (something) through cheating or manipulation; also (followed by out of), to deprive of something by cheating or manipulating (someone). 9. (intransitive) 10. To expend effort or struggle in vain. 11. (obsolete) To argue or complain in a petty or trivial manner; to quibble. [...] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baffle

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I am no politician, and still less can I be said to be a party- man: I have a hatred of tyranny, and a contempt for its tools; and this feeling I have expressed as often and as strongly as I could. I cannot sit quietly down under the claims of barefaced power, and have tried to expose the little arts of sophistry by which they are defended. I have no mind to have my person made a property of, nor my understanding made a dupe of. I deny that liberty and slavery are convertible terms, that right and wrong, truth and falsehood, plenty and famine, the comforts or wretchedness of a people, are matters of perfect indifference. That is all I know of the matter; but on these points I am likely to remain incorrigible, in spite of any arguments that I have seen used to the contrary. It needs no sagacity to discover that two and two make four; but to persist in maintaining this obvious position, if all the fashion, authority, hypocrisy, and venality of mankind were arrayed against it, would require a considerable effort of personal courage, and would soon leave a man in a very formidable minority.   --William Hazlitt https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Hazlitt