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

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

Arts & culture

Celebrate 10 years of the HONK! Oz street music festival

Wollongong’s HONK! Oz street musical festival is in its tenth year this January, and it’s time to celebrate a decade of honking good fun. The festival is a veritable cavalcade of creative arts, mixing alternative community bands with related arts...

Emma Rooksby

December 2024

Science & Nature

A classy grass showing off right now

Right now many local grasses are looking simply spectacular. I’ve previously featured the Native Sorghum (S. leiocladum), Basket Grass (Oplismenus sp.), Pygmy Panic (Panicum pygmaeum) and the Love Grasses (Eragrostis species) and they’re all doing...

Emma Rooksby

December 2024

Science & Nature

Flooding and Illawarra’s native vegetation

High rainfall events and flooding are regular occurrences in the Illawarra region, as in many parts of the world. The last four years have included three very wet summers (due to influences such as La Niña phase of the El Niño-La Niña Seasonal...

Emma Rooksby

December 2024

Science & Nature

Wake up and smell the Coffee Bush!

In fruit right now is one of the most common and widespread local shrubs of the Illawarra region: the Coffee Bush (Breynia oblongifolia). And it’s looking spectacular!! The foliage and ripe fruit of the Coffee Bush (Breynia oblongifolia). Perhaps...

Emma Rooksby

December 2024

Science & Nature

Fruiting now: the Cheese Tree

The Cheese Tree (Glochidion ferdinandi) is a lovely thing, particularly at the moment when many plants are in full fruit and covered in their colourful pinkish-red, very vaguely cheese-like capsules. Cheese Trees are some of the most widespread...

Emma Rooksby

December 2024

Science & Nature

Resilient native meadows can cope with wet and dry

I’ve written about many of Illawarra’s local native ground covers, grasses and ferns. Individually each species has its appealing (or not-so-appealing) features, and environmental preferences, with everything from grasses that prefer to grow in mud...

Emma Rooksby

November 2024

Science & Nature

Flowering now, the spectacular Swamp Lily

With the warm and now wet spring we’re having, many local plants are flowering and fruiting brilliantly. It’s an excellent time to observe local native plants and see what they’re up to. One local plant that is doing particularly well is the Swamp...

Emma Rooksby

November 2024

Science & Nature

Future Proofing the Cabbage Tree Palm

Cabbage Tree Palms are very significant to local First Nations Peoples. They are also immensely important to many fruit-eating birds, particularly but not only local pigeons and doves. For this reason they are a really valuable element of local...

Emma Rooksby

November 2024

Science & Nature

Croom BioBlitz an opportunity for budding citizen scientists

This Friday and Saturday, local citizen scientists have the chance to explore and document the amazing biodiversity of Croom Reserve in Shellharbour. Croom Reserve is a precious remnant of the Illawarra’s original vegetation, a beautiful place to...

Emma Rooksby

November 2024

Science & Nature

Snow-in-Summer, a local tree showing off right now

I found it almost impossible to choose a plant to feature this week, as there are just so many species looking absolutely spectacular around the region. Wildflowers are still doing wonderfully in areas such as Maddens Plains, Sublime Point...

Emma Rooksby

November 2024