WESTERN AUSTRALIA. — On November 9, 1960, the Red and Green Kangaroo Paw, also known as Mangles’ kangaroo paw, was proclaimed as the floral emblem of Western Australia. Lieutenant Governor of Western Australia, His Excellency the Honourable Sir John Dwyer, announced it.
French botanist Jacques-Julian Houton de Labillardiere first collected and described the Kangaroo Paw near Esperance in 1792.
It is a type of low-growing shrub native to Western Australia. This unusual plant gained its name by the apparent resemblance of its cluster of unopened flowers to a kangaroo’s paw, being long and slender, like the forepaw of a kangaroo.
There are just twelve species of the genus ‘Anigozanthos’ to which the Kangaroo Paw belongs. Preferring sandy soil, in their native state they are found throughout southwest Western Australia, in the north around Geraldton and on the Swan Coastal Plain near Perth.
