Arabic version: إغلاق التصويت لاختيار زهرة أستراليا البرية بعد 70 ألف صوت

According to ABC News, voting in the search for Australia’s favourite native wildflower has closed after more than 70,000 people cast ballots during National Science Week. The ABC’s live blog said the winning flower was still to be unearthed.

The poll shortlisted 10 wildflowers selected with input from plant experts across the country, including people from botanic gardens, seed banks and Gardening Australia. Science journalist and plant expert Rose Kerr said the selection focused on less celebrated understory flowers with unusual adaptations, rather than more familiar choices such as the waratah.

The finalists included the bladderwort, which uses carnivory to obtain nutrients, and the flying duck orchid, which uses sexual deception to lure pollinators. The underground orchid relies completely on a fungal partner and lives below ground, with only its flowers penetrating the top layer of soil.

Other featured plants included triggerplants, whose catapult-like structures strike visiting insects with pollen in about 15 to 30 milliseconds, and star flowers, whose stamens change from yellow to red to signal reduced nectar availability. The ABC also highlighted flannel flowers, murnong or yam daisy, mulla mulla and Tasmania’s cold-mountain specialist Richea scoparia.

Readers were invited to send wildflower questions to an expert panel that included Chantelle Doyle of UNSW, Digby Growns and Belinda Davis of Kings Park and Botanic Garden, and Kerr. The live blog also shared a reader’s account of voting for the flying duck orchid in memory of former parks ranger Jenny Conolly, whose observations helped support protection of a site near Moruya.