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Posted on by Debbie

Going Green and Gold for #SundayStills

Wattle is Australia’s floral emblem

You may know that Australia’s colours are green and gold, but do you know why?

Long associated with Australian sporting achievements, the national colours have strong environmental connections. Gold conjures images of Australia’s beaches, mineral wealth, grain harvests and the fleece of Australian wool. Green evokes the forests, eucalyptus trees and pastures of the Australian landscape.

Green and gold are also the colours of Australia’s national floral emblem – the golden wattle.

Source

When flowering, the wattle is both green and gold – and apparently it’s a symbol of unity.

Over the years I’ve taken a few photos of wattle flowers as they are so pretty. I love the starburst look of them. Here are some of my favourites:

Wattle in close up
Wattle flowers
Wattle flowers
wattle
Wattle flowers
Wattle flowers

National Wattle Day – why do we celebrate?

We actually have a day called Wattle Day – the first of September each year since 1992 has been officially celebrated as Wattle Day.

  • Wattle is our national floral emblem. It is a symbol that comes directly from our land;
  • Wattle is Australian and represents us all. Unlike other national days, National Wattle Day excludes no one;
  • Like our people, wattle has great diversity (with more than 1,000 species) and resilience;
  • Wattle welcomes in the spring and is among the first plants to regenerate after fire, reminding us of the importance of renewal as it paints our national colours across our land; and
  • Wattle is a unifying symbol for all Australians. There is no other symbol that says so much about us and our land, Australia.
  • Wattle is a symbol of Australia and Australians.

Many of our national sporting teams don the green and gold when they play for Australia, so if you didn’t know why, now you do 🙂

I hope you have learnt something about the source of Australia’s ‘green and gold’ and our floral symbol – the wattle!

I love nothing more than spotting the first wattles flowering in the bush, they are such a happy colour! Are you a fan?

What’s your country’s national flower/symbol?

Deb xx

National or State symbol is the prompt for Terri’s Sunday Stills this week. Click on the link to learn something about other interesting symbols 🙂

Sunday Stills photo challenge
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22 Replies to “Going Green and Gold for #SundayStills”

  1. Hi Deb,
    So I learned a few things about Australia from your post…and the wattle is such an interesting plant. The colors are vivid, and now I understand a little bit about the reasoning behind “green and gold.”

    Liked by 1 person

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  3. First of all, I love yellow flowers and these are stunners with that starburst shape, Debbie! And of course, your spectacular images capture the extraordinary beauty! I love that Australia celebrates green and gold which reflect colors found in nature. Yellow mustard flowers and those orange poppies are everywhere along the roads now in all of California.

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    1. Thanks for the feedback Terri, it was great fun sharing why we have green and gold as our colours and the wattle flowers are just gorgeous. It’s been a great prompt, I’ve learnt so much about other places I knew nothing about! Maybe it’s the teacher in me coming out.

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  9. Thanks for this, I feel suitably enlightened! You’ve reminded me of a little bit of doggerel that was once in a Monty Python sketch about Australians:

    ‘This here’s the wattle,
    The emblem of our land.
    You can stick it in a bottle
    Or hold it in your hand.’

    I bet you didn’t know your national flower had such a cultural influence 😉

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      2. I’ve just looked it up. If you’re interested and have a streaming service to give you access, it’s right at the end of ‘Bruce’s Sketch.’ They also do one on ‘Australian Table Wine’ which I played to an Australian guy on a course we were doing: he laughed so much he nearly choked on his drink 😉

        Liked by 1 person

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