Banksia attenuata, the candlestick banksia, is a tree in the family Proteaceae. Commonly reaching 10 m (33 ft), it can be a shrub of 0.4 to 2 m (1.3 to 6.6 ft) in dryer areas. It has long narrow serrated leaves and bright yellow inflorescences, or flower spikes. It is found across much of the southwest of Western Australia, from north of Kalbarri National Park south to Cape Leeuwin and then east to Fitzgerald River National Park. Robert Brown named the species in 1810. Within the genus Banksia, the close relationships and exact position of B. attenuata are unclear. The tree is pollinated by and provides food for a wide array of vertebrate and invertebrate animals in summer months, including the honeyeaters and the honey possum, a tiny marsupial. The plant regenerates from bushfire by regrowing from its woody base or from epicormic buds within its trunk. It can live for up to 300 years. It has been widely used as a street tree and for amenities planting in urban Western Australia, though its large size generally precludes use in small gardens. A dwarf form is commercially available in nurseries.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1844:

A gun on USS Princeton exploded while the warship was on a Potomac River cruise, killing six people and injuring twenty others. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Princeton_disaster_of_1844

1897:

Ranavalona III, the last sovereign ruler of the Kingdom of Madagascar, was deposed by a French military force. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_III

1914:

In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars, Greeks living in southern Albania proclaimed the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_Republic_of_Northern_Epirus

1972:

Japanese police stormed a mountain lodge near Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, to end a ten-day siege by members of the paramilitary group United Red Army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asama-Sans%C5%8D_incident

1997:

GRB 970228, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays, struck the Earth for 80 seconds, providing early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRB_970228

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

millstone: 1. A large round stone used for grinding grain. 2. (geology) A coarse-grained sandstone used for making such stones; millstone grit. 3. (figuratively) Often in a millstone round one's neck (referring to Matthew 18:6 in the Bible): a heavy responsibility that is difficult to bear. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millstone

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Great abuses in the world are begotten, or, to speak more boldly, all the abuses of the world are begotten, by our being taught to be afraid of professing our ignorance, and that we are bound to accept all things we are not able to refute: we speak of all things by precepts and decisions. The style at Rome was that even that which a witness deposed to having seen with his own eyes, and what a judge determined with his most certain knowledge, was couched in this form of speaking: “it seems to me.” They make me hate things that are likely, when they would impose them upon me as infallible.   --Michel de Montaigne https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne