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22 The Fire-Embracing Proteas of Oz—Waratahs, Grevilleas, Hakeas, Banksias, and Isopogons
Some of Australia’s most distinctive plants—many found nowhere else in the world—are also some of the earliest to appear in the fossil pollen record. Our spectacular, showy, and fire-embracing banksias, waratahs, grevilleas, and hakeas had early ancestors which migrated here from the rift valley of West Gondwana from about 100 mya. Australia’s many members of the Proteaceae family are highly varied, having had millions of years to diversify and adapt to immense changes—continents rifting apart, volcanic activity, sea levels rising and falling, and climates changing.