User Profile

Emma Rooksby

Emma Rooksby is a local volunteer bush regenerator and environmental educator who helped establish the Growing Illawarra Natives website. She is passionate about protecting and restoring local biodiversity in the Illawarra region and collaborates with many groups and individuals who share that passion.

Science & Nature

Fruiting now: all sorts of Lilly Pilly

We’re into the European month of May and well into the season of autumn, although it’s still very warm compared with the long-term average for this time of year. In the D’harawal calendar, the indications are that we are in marrai’gang, when it’s...

Emma Rooksby

May 2025

Science & Nature

Fruiting now: the yummy White Aspen

We are fortunate in the Illawarra region to have so many useful and edible native plants. First Nations Peoples have known of and used these plants for many generations, but we more recent arrivals can be unaware of the good things around. One such...

Emma Rooksby

April 2025

Science & Nature

What’s in a name? In this case, a marsupial mystery!

Kangaroo Vine (Cissus antarctica) is one of the commonest and most recognisable of our local rainforest vines. Its distinctive toothed leaves with obvious venation, and the coppery-brown colouration of new tendrils and leaf stems, are often visible...

Emma Rooksby

April 2025

Science & Nature

On the verge of a grassy revolution?

One of my quiet pleasures in life is walking or cycling around the Illawarra, and just checking out what plants are growing where. Local verges are a real revelation, as a wealth of local native species call them home. Local grasses in particular...

Emma Rooksby

April 2025

Science & Nature

Latest plant mystery: What’s going on with the Sassafras?

The beautiful Sassafras tree (Doryphora sassafras) is a distinctive and very common local rainforest tree of the escarpment. It is present in many areas along the slopes and benches, but particularly the steep upper slopes. These upper slopes run...

Emma Rooksby

April 2025

Science & Nature

Happy National Eucalypt Day to the Grey Ironbark and other outstanding habitat trees

Last Sunday 23rd of March was National Eucalypt Day. There are events being held throughout March, right around Australia, to celebrate this absolutely iconic Australian group of plants. There are over 800 species of Eucalyptus, most of them only...

Emma Rooksby

March 2025

Science & Nature

Native Tussock Grass: a biodiversity bonanza

Illawarra is a real biodiversity hotspot, with many thousands of native species calling this place home. What a privilege to live among them! We live in a local government area with over 2,000 native plant species, hundreds of native mammals, and...

Emma Rooksby

March 2025

Science & Nature

New program calls for Guardians of the Grassy Woodlands

Right across the Illawarra, in urban parks and reserves, bushland patches and even in gardens and on verges, endangered species and ecological communities live among us. Our urban and peri-urban spaces are habitat for the Koala, first recorded by...

Emma Rooksby

March 2025

Science & Nature

A majestic rainforest tree lurking in forests near you

This week’s entry goes back to the plants themselves, this time an unloved and unlucky vine that usually gets very bad press. The Silkpod Vine (Parsonsia straminea)

Emma Rooksby

March 2025

Science & Nature

Commelina confusion

The beautiful blue flowers of Commelina (Commelina cyanea), also known as Scurvy Weed, are appearing around the region in large numbers at the moment. There isn’t that much blue in the plant world, relative to other colours, so it’s always pleasant...

Emma Rooksby

February 2025

Science & Nature

Introducing Blackthorn and its butterfly friends

This is another article that didn’t start with a plant, but instead with an insect! Last week we had the adventure of the non-Stink Bugs on an Illawarra Flame Tree (Brachychiton acerifolius), and this week it’s the surprise appearance of a butterfly...

Emma Rooksby

February 2025

Science & Nature

The strange case of the stink bug that wasn’t

Social media is lighting up in 2025 with images of all kinds of insect: native bees, bugs, beetles, flies, wasps and many more. Invertebrate biodiversity really seems to be having a moment. I normally use this column to write about plants, but am...

Emma Rooksby

February 2025

Science & Nature

Yellow Hibiscus blooms in coastal swamps

In flower right now is one of the prettiest local Hibiscus plants, the Swamp Hibiscus or Hibiscus diversifolius. And that’s really saying something, as Illawarra is home to the splendid Hibiscus splendens which I featured a few weeks back. Swamp...

Emma Rooksby

February 2025

Science & Nature

Sniff out a Fragrant Fern near you

Illawarra is home to dozens of ferns, as attested by the new book by local botanist Kevin Mills, South Coast Ferns. They come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny filmy-ferns to tree ferns 20m tall or more. I love seeing each and every one of them...

Emma Rooksby

January 2025