BushNo 84 Summer 2009/10 Telegraph ~ Invitation ~ Sundowner for the Sun Bears • Meet Mary Hutton, founder of Wednesday 2nd December Free the Bears Fund and hear about the work of FTB. 5.30pm until sundown • Find out the story behind this A special event to launch the special grevillea and be first to Woolly Bear Grevilleas in WA. buy your own Grevillea Woolly Join us for a cuppa and Lions Bear Mian, raising funds for Christmas cake. Buy a ticket in ‘Free the Bears Fund Inc’. the raffle to win your own toy • Welcome back Claire Hooper sun bear. who will informally MC the RSVP essential: 94546260 event. Grevillea Woolly Bear® ‘Mian’ To this end, the fund has constructed A new Aussie plant to help sanctuaries in Cambodia, Thailand, ‘Free The Bears’ Fund. Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam and India. Across S.E. Asia over 700 bears have Longtime FTB member Sue Forrester been rescued from markets, poachers, and her husband Bill Molyneux, restaurants and the wildlife trade.The owners of Austraflora, the leading bear is then taken to the sanctuary to Australian native plant development live in freedom and peace. company, are releasing a brand new Grevillea this year to raise funds for The fund has been welcomed by Free The Bears. Grevillea Woolly Bear Mian the Governments in S.E. Asia and is working closely with them to bring Launched at the Melbourne honour of Cambodian Sun Bear about the closure of bile farms in International Flower & Garden Mian, whom they also help to Vietnam and Laos. Show in April, Woolly Bear® ‘Mian’ sponsor. Further varieties in the will be available in WA nurseries in Woolly Bear® range will become Free The Bears Fund employs local summer 2009. available soon, and each will be people to care for the bears in the sanctuaries thus helping to address Hardy, adaptable, and well suited named for a real bear. The next the poverty issues. to a range of soils and climates, to follow will be Woolly Bear® ‘Mian’ has beautiful woolly foliage ‘Hero’, named for Hero the rescued 100% of all donations and and furry golden red bunches of ‘dancing’ bear in India. sponsorships go directly to care for the bears. flowers. Honeyeaters love it, and Free The Bears Fund Inc it makes a fabulous specimen or – Mary Hutton, Founder Free The Bears Fund was registered hedge plant, and for those who have Free the Bears Foundation as a non-profit charity in 1995 with small spaces, it thrives in containers an aim to Protect, Preserve and http://www.freethebears.org.au/ and tubs. Enrich the lives of bears throughout Sue & Bill named this plant in the world. 155 Watsonia Road, Maida Vale Western Australia, 6057 Phone: (08) 9454 6260 Fax: (08) 9454 4540 http://www.zanthorrea.com BushNo 84 Summer 2009/10 Telegraph Special Feature: Grevillea Woolly Bear® Mian A new Grevillea ~ but can be pruned very easily. Add to that its neon-bright flowers which with a special purpose. match any of the showy members of this genus, and soft grey-green By Sue Forrester & Bill Molyneux, foliage adorned with silky purple Austraflora Pty Ltd, Dixons Creek, new tips, and we constantly asked Victoria ** ourselves how it could possibly have been overlooked since botanical exploration of Australia began? Out there in the bush …. With a small amount of cutting You’d think the chances of finding material, some early propagation a brand new species of Grevillea ~ trials were made and a few plants new to science, new to horticulture struck. At this stage, the thinking ~ at the start of the 21st century Grevillea Woolly Bear Mian was that it would be a fine landscape would be pretty low. After all, surely co-authored by Bill Molyneux and a plant that would readily adapt to every bit of Australia has already botanist colleague at the Melbourne gardens and add a great deal to the been walked over by somebody Herbarium. urban environment. with a keen botanical eye. The outstanding feature of its flowers But as these baby plants developed But about eight years ago that’s ~ apart from their vivid burnt- into sturdy youngsters and industry exactly what happened. A packet orange colour and fist-size bunches colleagues were also impressed of plant material arrived in our mail ~ is their mantle of rusty-gold ‘fur’. with their appearance, our thinking box, with a question mark on the Thus the plant was named Grevillea stretched. slip of paper included. It took about callichlaena, meaning ‘lovely cloak’ Perhaps this startling new plant five minutes for us to be certain (calli = lovely, chlaena = cloak or could achieve an even higher that what we held in our hands covering). was something completely new to purpose than just filling a spot in During the preparation of the our gardens? Australia’s botanical records. botanical paper, we often referred In a locality not particularly off the to the plant colloquially as ‘Woolly beaten track, on a mountain top in Bear’. The name became a shorthand north east Victoria, a population of tag in our many discussions; it was a stunningly lovely grevillea had a bit more romantic than ‘that new been noted by an observant orchid grevillea we’re working on …’ photographer, and specimens duly And what about the garden? sent to us for identification. It was With the market demand higher clearly a grevillea which bore a than ever for plants which tolerate relationship to the Royal Grevillea dry conditions, attract honeyeaters, (G. victoriae), but was in fact vastly and fill a range of landscape design different in many characteristics. criteria, we very quickly recognized Three survey trips later during that here was a plant which ticked all subsequent years and the mystery those boxes. It slots into that ‘small to plant was given its scientific name, medium’ shrub size, around a metre detailed in a botanical paper high and wide, perhaps a little more Mian the rescued sun bear cub 155 Watsonia Road, Maida Vale Western Australia, 6057 Phone: (08) 9454 6260 Fax: (08) 9454 4540 http://www.zanthorrea.com.