Candles, candles everywhere! If you’ve been for a walk lately along the coast, in an area like Puckey’s Estate, you’ll have seen the cheerful colours of the Coastal Banksias in flower. Some trees are covered with splashes of yellow, while on others the flowers are only just getting started.

Coastal Banksia (Banksia integrifolia) is the most common Banksia in this region, growing along the coast near the sea, and up into the escarpment in the more northerly suburbs.

One fun fact about Banksias is that each ‘candle’ is actually made up of hundreds of individual small flowers, which open successively over a few days or weeks. A neat-looking candle like the one above doesn’t have any of its flowers open; once the flowers open up the whole candle starts to look more and more shaggy and dishevelled. The open flowers are brilliant at attracting pollinators, from bees to bats and honeyeaters, while Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos love to eat the unripe seeds and can often be seen feeding among the trees. Look for them right now!

The Coastal Banksia tree itself is a beautiful thing, broad and spreading or tall and upright depending on where it’s growing. It’s not the only local species of Banksia, though it’s the largest and the most common species on the coastal plain. Up in areas like Sublime Point or Bulli Tops you can see many other Banksia species, including the Swamp Banksia (B. robur), all of them popular with the birds. This Swamp Banksia is being visited by a Little Wattle Bird.