Doryanthes is a plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of the species Doryanthes excelsa

Gymea Lily

The Gymea Lily is a flowering plant indigenous to the coastal areas of New South Wales near Sydney.The plant has sword-like leaves more than a meter long...

and Doryanthes palmeri

Doryanthes palmeri

Doryanthes palmeri is a plant of the genus Doryanthes. It grows in a rosette and the leaves can reach the length of about three meters . The flowers arise in springtime on a stalk which may reach 5 metres height....

and native to the coast of Eastern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

These plants grow in a rosette

Rosette (botany)

In botany, a rosette is a circular arrangement of leaves, with all the leaves at a single height.Though rosettes usually sit near the soil, their structure is an example of a modified stem.-Function:...

 form. It takes more than 10 years for them to get flowers. They enjoy a warm environment, good soil, and much water during the warmest time of the year.

History

The genus Doryanthes was first described in 1802 by the Portuguese priest, statesman, philosopher and botanist José Francisco Correia de Serra (1750–1823), a close friend of Sir Joseph Banks. Doryanthes excelsa or "Gymea Lily", endemic to southern Sydney and the Illawarra, has also inspired the naming of Doryanthes, the journal of history and heritage for Southern Sydney founded by Dharawal historian Les Bursill

Les Bursill

Leslie William Bursill is a Dharawal historian, archaeologist, anthropologist, and publisher, born in Hurstville, New South Wales, on 4 February 1945. His father Wallace Richard Bursill was serving in the 7th Div AIF in New Guinea at the time of Bursill's birth...

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