Australia is a country that has many weird and wonderful things, poisonous beasties, giant creatures and many, many interesting and bizarre plants. With its warm climate and wide variety of soils many species of plants are found only in certain parts of Australia.

Red and Green Kangaroo Paw

The floral emblem of Western Australia this strikingly odd plant is one that is endemic to the region. Found primarily in Southwest Australia in regions with white, yellow or grey sand this plant can have flower stalks that can grow up to 1.2m in height with the its striking flowers. These unique bird attracting flowers are tubular in shape and densely coated in tiny hairs which trigger an opening of the claw like structure that gives the flower its name.

Albany Bottlebrush

A shrub also found in similar conditions to the Kangaroo Paw, this pretty normal looking plant for the majority of the year produces bright red toilet brush like spikes between September and December.

Common Catspaw

Part of the same family as the Kangaroo paw this plant grows in similar conditions as well. It produces long strap like leaves at its base with a long stalk where the flowers appear at the terminus giving the plant an overall height of around 1m with Its flowers have a stunning blend of yellow orange and red and like the kangaroo.

Scarlet Banksia

Scarlet Banksia is the common name for the Banksia coccinea a quite unique looking shrub endemic to the south-western parts of Australia. Growing up to 8 metres tall (26ft) its red and white flowers are usually arranged in a spiral up the spike of the flower but look like they are arranged vertically due to gaps between the columns.

Wispy Spider Orchid

This just look really damn creepy.

  Robert Burns,  born on 25th January 1759.  Rose from humble beginnings to become 'Scotlands favourite son'

His work is celebrated worldwide and today (25th January) get your self some haggis, neeps and tatties, pour yourself a wee dram and sing loud to celebrate a nations favourite.

Heres a classic Burns poem to get you in the mood

Address to a Haggis

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect sconner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit:
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

This Monday is the 23^rd of January, a Monday I imagine similar to many others, the weather will no doubt be cold and bleak and those bitter northerly winds will remind keep us longing for the milder months to come. To many people however, this Monday is a cause for celebration as it is the beginning of a New year in the lunar callender which is also know and celebrated as Chinese New Year, Korean New Year, Tibetan New Year as well as many more. One of the main traditions of each one of these festivals is flowers, in particular the Chinese new year celebrations wouldn’t be complete without an array of flowers all with their own meaning.

Need your factoid and new information fix for today? we have got you covered. Here are some facts, figures, challenges and general fun to keep us all occupied for one more day.

1. A pineapple is a berry.

2. Americans eat more bananas than any other fruit: a total of 11 billion a year.

3. Almonds are the oldest, most widely cultivated and extensively used nuts in the world.

4. Bananas are actually herbs. Bananas die after fruiting, like all herbs do.

5. Ginger has been clinically demonstrated to work twice as well as Dramamine for fighting motion sickness, with no side effects.

6. Banana oil has nothing to do with bananas; it's made from petroleum.

7. One pound of tea can make 300 cups of the beverage.

Riddle

Q: Red, purple, orange, yellow, blue, and green - No one can touch me, not even a queen.

 (Highlight the text below to reveal the answer)

A: RAINBOW

Joke

This time it comes it the form of a animation

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/574717

Pretty funny!

In all the bedlam that is the Christmas period we missed a pretty interesting piece of news. Researchers in the Netherlands have discovered the very first flower know to science that does something truly bizarre, it flowers exclusively at night!

The Bulbophyllum nocturnum orchid was discovered by Ed de Vogel during an expedition to New Britain, an island near Papua New Guinea. Upon taking the specimen back home he found that as the buds reached a size where they would normally bloom he would find the next day they had withered. He soon discovered that the flowers opened for a single night only shortly after sun down and closed and withered just after sunrise.

Even though there are species of orchid that are known to attract nighttime pollinators the B. nocturnum orchid is the first to flower exclusively at night. The reason behind this behaviour remains a mystery until further field studies but one proposed explanation is that the orchid are mimicking fungi with the orchid releasing a scent humans cant detect which attracts flies and other pollinators.

Bizare, but i have to say its not the prettiest of orchids !!

A selection of some of the 42 parade floats at this years rose parade, some are incredibly cool!

The tournament of Roses Parade occurs before the coveted Rose Bowl football game and is considered Americas New year Celebration. During the week of the parade which occurs on new years day or the day after if new years day occurs on a Sunday over 1,000,000 people visit Pasadena, California to see some amazing flower-covered floats, marching bands and equestrians. Below is a selection of some of the stunning floats which make up the bulk of the parade and here is an astonishing fact it takes around 36 marigolds, 30 roses or 20 daises to cover one square foot of a float a rough calculation estimates the total number of flowers used in the parade to be around 18 million!!!

Did you know?

In Thailand the festival of Songkran sees people visit their families, parading of statues of the Buddha from the temples and also throwing water at passers by to wash away any bad luck that they may bring with them into the New Year

The song Auld Lang Syne which we all sing at new year rather merrily at Midnight means "old long ago" and is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1788.

In Ecuador there is a New Years Eve tradition know as the burning of old years in which effigies of people and events of the previous year are set alight in the streets.

The New Years Eve ball in Times Square that is dropped at 23.59, is six feet in diameter, made of Waterford Crystal and weighs a large 1,070 lbs

The tradition of fireworks and firecrackers at New Year stretches back to belief that the bright flashes and loud bangs would scare away the evil spirits for the year.

In Spain it is a ritual that at the strike of midnight on New Years Eve to eat twelve grapes, one at each chime, to secure twelve happy months in the coming year.

Our tips for Tuesday this week sees all things christmasy dominate with some video instruction to make your Christmas even more AWESOME!

Making Your Own Crackers

Wrapping Your Presents Creatively

Making a Christmas Tree from Paper

A Designers Tips on Christmas Decorations

Making Easy Fabric Decorations

As we are under a week, yep its only 6 days now till the big day, we will take one last look at a Christmas tradition that is one of my personal favourites, it’s the awesome tug of war which occurs around the dinner table whilst praying for a win and for the gift to be good, its non other that Christmas crackers. As we all know, they are awesome but how did they get to be on our dinner table, where does this rather strange tradition come from?

The Christmas cracker has a rather simple beginning and was invented in 1846 by Thomas Smith after a trip to the French capital Paris. During his time in Paris he came across bob-bon, a sugar coated almond that had been wrapped in tissue paper and had been twisted shut at each side. On his return to England he decided to try selling similar sweets in the lead up to Christmas. His sweets sold particularly well during the Christmas period but suffered poor sales during the rest of the year.

After sales began to decline Thomas came up with a few new ideas to help in promoting his sweets. The first was introduced in the 1850s and it was to include a motto in with the sweet which, since they were usually bought for women by men, were usually a simple love poem. As this only provided a temporary improvement in sales Thomas wanted to add a crackle effect to the sweet that he heard from inside a wood fire. The banger as it became meant the packaging had to changing and became more akin to the shape we are use to today. As his new crackers began to take off many copy cats came along that led Thomas to switch out the sugar coated sweet with a surprise gift that varied amongst cracker. Other changes to the cracker came after Thomas died when his sons took over the business as at the start of the 1900s paper crowns were added and in the 1930s the simple love poems had been replaced by jokes and limericks.