A botanist in Western Australia has found a new species of Australian flower in a remote part of the Botany Gardens in Botany Creek.
The botanists find the flower, which is now named after the creek, is a new genus of the genus Asteraceae.
“It’s a pretty exciting find,” said Katherine Anderson, who works for the Botanical Gardens.
“It’s really interesting and a bit different to what we usually see in Australia.”
Anderson has worked at Botany Falls since 2011, where she was able to find the new species.
“I was very surprised, I didn’t expect it to be this new and interesting,” she said.
Anderson and her team first noticed the new plant when they noticed that the leaves had been replaced with new ones.
“When I noticed that I noticed it and then the first time I took a closer look, I could see that the flower was a bit bigger,” she explained.
“The plant looked quite different to a lot of the other plants in the garden.
I think it was just the way that the leafs had been changed that made it so unique.”
Anderson says the new flower is quite unique and different to other species of Asteraceae, so she is hoping to find out more about it in the future.
“We will continue to monitor it closely and hopefully find out what it is and hopefully that will lead to us having more of these sorts of discoveries,” she added.
For more news about the Botanic Gardens, visit the ABC News website.