Acacia plants are commonly called “wattles” and they are the largest vascular plants in Australia. A course on acacia plants, like our Growing Acacia Plants is ideal for gardeners and horticulturalists.
You will learn to identify, grow and use a wide variety of wattles, and study propagation methods, the physiology of acacias, how to select them for specific climates and the landscaping and design processes. You will also gain insights into their other uses, including for tanning, timber, food sources, cut flowers and gum Arabic and how to deal with diseases and pests.
Outcomes achieved by undertaking a course on acacia plants include:
And more!
Acacia plants, including the golden wattle, have thrived on our continent for 35 million years and are resilient to wind, drought and bushfire. So they are the perfect symbol for our Aussie spirit! Here are ten facts you might not know about Australia’s floral emblem.
Wattles are vital components of Australia’s many and varied ecosystems . They provide shelter, shade and fodder and are used for erosion control, roadside and ornamental plantings, mining rehabilitation and other revegetation programs. Timber from wattles is also used for high quality furniture, including the species known as Blackwood (Acacia melanoxylon).
Australia’s First Peoples have inhabited the continent for over 65,000 years. They used acacia plants for a number of purposes before British colonisation. The pollen, wood and sap from wattle trees was transformed into medicine, food, tools, weapons, glues, perfumes, musical instruments, dyes and ceremonial decoration. Because they bloom in spring, they also signified seasonal events such as eels appearing in rivers and whales arriving on the coast.
A fragrant and beautiful essential oil can be distilled from the flowers of certain species of the wattle. It has a wonderful, sweet floral, rich woody and honey aroma. Relaxing, uplifting and calming, it also improves moods and can calm noisy children (bonus!)
Australia was federated as a nation in 1901, so World War I efforts were integral to the formation of a national identity. The golden wattle played a significant symbolic role as its flowers were sold to raise money during the war. It also became tradition to send pressed wattles in letters to wounded soldiers in Europe, and fallen soldiers were often buried with a sprig of wattle.
The golden wattle only became the official floral emblem of Australia in 1988. But Wattle Day has been observed singe 1899, before our nation was even federated. Wattle Day is celebrated on September 1 every year, and, as it’s the first day of spring, it reinforces the flower’s status as a symbol of renewal, new growth and fresh beginnings.
A sprig of wattle has appeared on the official symbol of the Commonwealth of Australia — the Coat of Arms — since 1912. However, it’s actually botanically incorrect! Wattle frames the emu, kangaroo and the shield which represents the country’s six states. But technically, the green leaves and spherical flowers of a wattle don’t provide an accurate depiction of the Acacia pycnantha.
Our national flag may be red, white and blue, but Australian sporting teams have been wearing the national colours — the “green and gold” — on their uniforms since the late 1800s. The first Australian national sporting team that wore these colours was the Australian cricket team that toured England in 1899. Green and gold were officially recognised as Australia’s national colours in 1984.
Australia’s elite sportsmen aren’t the only ones who love a touch of green and gold. Queen Elizabeth II wore golden wattle on her official coronation gown when she took the throne on June 2, 1953. It appeared alongside other floral emblems that represented different corners of the British Empire. These included New Zealand’s fern, Canada’s maple leaf, South Africa’s protea and India’s lotus flower.
The designs of countless Australian Defence Force honours, the National Emergency Medal and the highest honour an Australian civilian can receive, the Order of Australia medal, are based on the golden wattle. The national flower is also a common motif in works by iconic Australian artists such as Sidney Nolan and Albert Namatjira, as well as John Williamson’s song Cootamundra Wattle and Banjo Paterson’s 1915 poem, We’re All Australians Now.
Australians might hold their national flower with great affection, but that sentiment isn’t necessarily shared all over the planet. The Acacia pycnantha is considered a weed in Tanzania, South Africa, Portugal, Italy, India, Sardinia, New Zealand and Indonesia where it competes with native vegetation.
A course on acacia plants will help you identify plants that are best for your garden. Wattles can be amazing plants for your garden and can range in height from two to thirty metres. But regardless of their height, they all produce flowers in vibrant hues of yellow. Here are some of the more common varieties in order of size.
Gain a solid foundational knowledge of how to select, grow and use a variety of acacias with a course on acacia plants, like our Growing Acacia Plants course.
Rose farming really is a booming business, from cut flower production to perfume extraction, harvesting hips and rose oils! This flower’s popularity for business and pleasure truly is coming up roses! So, if you want to start your own blooming business in rose farming, take a look at our Certificate of Rose Production!
Certificate of Rose Production is an online professional development course that helps you identify, propagate and grow many different types of roses for a commercial rose crop. You will discover rose species and varieties pronunciation of rose names, as well as propagation, pruning, pest control and soil management techniques.
In this rose farming course, you’ll also learn to prepare a plan for a rose garden, produce drawings to scale, about the components of a greenhouse and hydroponic system for roses to create and manage a commercial rose crop for whatever venture takes your fancy!
Outcomes achieved by undertaking our rose farming course include:
And more!
If you stop to smell the roses, you’ll be interested in rose farming of the fragrant kind. Here are five of the most sweet-smelling roses around.
A dark red, tall hybrid tea rose with an exquisite fragrance and long stems. These flowers are ideal for putting in vases and can be grown in hot Australian conditions!
A spicy-scented hybrid tea rose with a creamy centre and amazing smell! It grows as a bush to about 1.5 metres high, and while ideal in hot weather conditions, it doesn’t cope well with humidity.
A cream, apricot rose with an exquisite anise fragrance with hints of liquorice, spice and honey! It has large double blooms that do well in the warmer months, being easy to care for and heat resistant.
This beautiful rose has an intense fragrance of citrus, lychee and white peach! It has great form, healthy foliage and is ideal for picking.
This large, salmon-pink rose has a strong myrrh fragrance with hints of elderflower, pear and almond! It’s a busy shrub rose that flowers throughout summer.
Here are some fun facts about roses that you may not know … and a little inspiration for rose farming!
Gain a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of rose farming with our online course, the Certificate of Rose Production.
Ideal for landscapers, permaculturalists, farmers and environmental managers, this plant ecology course will enable you to develop a deeper understanding of the principles of plant ecology, why plants are the way they are, and their relationships to other plants, animals and the physical world around them.
The Certificate of Plant Ecology will give you insights into ecological principles, ecosystems, how plants respond to environmental stressors, and the importance of soil, weather, geography, climate and abiotic environmental factors in horticulture.
You will also understand how xerophytes, hydrophytes and halophytes can be used in gardening and landscaping situations, learn to evaluate meteorological records in relation to plant growth and development, and how planning, impact analysis and environmental assessment contribute to conservation.
Outcomes achieved by undertaking a plant ecology course include:
And more!
If you are interested in a plant ecology course, it is worth becoming familiar with the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA). Recently, prestigious Gold Medals were awarded by the society to two of Australia’s leading ecologists in recognition of the impact of their work. Professor Kristine French from the University of Wollongong and Professor Richard Kingsford of the University of NSW were the recipients.
As ESA President, Dr Bek Christensen commented, “Both Professor Kingsford and Professor French have made sustained and invaluable contributions to the understanding of Australian ecology. They have been pioneers and world leaders in their respective fields, fostered and mentored the next generation of scientists and given back to the research community through their leadership and service roles”.
Professor French is the Director of the Janet Cosh Herbarium at the University of Wollongong. She was Vice President of the Ecological Society of Australia from 2000 to 2007 and President from 2011 to 2013.
Her expertise on threatened species, environmental weeds and urban plants and birds has been sought in the management of threatened weeds and species such as exotic grasses, invasive vines and the bitou bush. She has helped to lead the national Birds in Backyards program which was awarded the 2008 Eureka Prize for Environmental Sustainability Education.
Through her leadership roles at the University of Wollongong and the Ecological Society of Australia, Professor French has had a substantial influence on generations of ecologists. She has taught thousands of students, instilling in them a love and appreciation of ecology and training many into careers as conservation scientists. She has supervised dozens of students, with many moving into senior positions in research, government and environmental non-government organisations.
“I find it really satisfying that students who have worked in my lab or spent some time here have gone on to do good things with that knowledge. I do like feeling like I’m doing something for the world that is positive and contributing my science to help solve environmental issues,”, she said.
Professor Kingsford is the Director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at UNSW Sydney. He is a conservation biologist and river ecologist who has worked extensively across the rivers and wetlands of the Murray-Darling and Lake Eyre Basins.
He has made a significant contribution to understanding the impact of water resource developments on wetlands and rivers. Most recently, he led a project on the impacts of dams on the platypus, which has resulted in a submission for threatened species status for this iconic species. Furthermore, he has invested time in the reintroduction of locally extinct mammals into Sturt National Park, in his role as leader of the Wild Deserts project.
This decade-long project in north-western NSW has already returned three of an intended seven species of locally extinct mammals. He also leads the Eastern Australian Waterbird Survey, which has been running since 1983 and covers about a third of the continent, making it one of the longest and most extensive surveys of ecosystems in the world.
For Professor Kingsford, his focus on river systems and wetlands is increasingly important. As he comments, “Waterbirds are fascinating and I could spend three lifetimes working on their intrinsic ecology but I realised they were declining and I needed to focus on threats to their existence, mainly from humans, so that others could enjoy them in their lifetimes too.”
As you’ll learn in this plant ecology course, plants have evolved to cope with extreme environments by using both chemical and physical adaptations. Some of these include:
Geographic areas where water is limited and infrequent are extremely stressful to plants living within these communities, and different plants have adopted a variety of techniques to deal with these conditions including:
Closed forests such as rainforests have dense canopies and therefore the amount of light that reaches the forest floor is greatly limited. Many plants have adapted to these environments in different ways such as:
Trees such as mangroves have to cope with intermittent inundation of soil and saltwater which is soft and low in oxygen. These plants have developed various methods to adapt to this environment such as:
Develop a comprehensive understanding of the important principles of plant ecology with a plant ecology course such as our Certificate of Plant Ecology.
The knowledge learnt in botany courses can help individuals solve a variety of major issues that exist across our planet. These include helping to purify polluted soil and air, overcome food shortages, and reduce global warming. This course is ideal for anyone working with plants, from botanists, agriculturists, horticulturists and farmers to nursery workers, landscapers and even those in the ecotourism industry.
In our Certificate of Botany, you will study the basics of plant science, including plant anatomy, physiology and morphology. In this fascinating botany course, you will also learn about the taxonomic classification of plants, the various systems in plants, the effects of growth manipulation, and how to harvest, store, transport and improve the shelf life of edible plants. Get that green thumb growing!
Outcomes achieved by undertaking botany courses include:
… and more!
The scientific study of plants helps us understand the effect of plants on animals and humans. And a number of botanists through history have had an enormous impact on the way botany is studied today. Here are some that will provide inspiration for anyone interested in studying botany courses.
Born in 1493, Paracelsus was a follower of the spiritual influences of the cosmos on man and nature. A believer in the classic Greek elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water, he believed that human health and in turn illnesses relied heavily on man’s harmony with nature.
Linnaeus is the father of modern biological classification systems, and after graduating from university, conducted numerous field studies where thousands of species of fauna and flora were identified, labelled and catalogued. He had a long and distinguished career until his death in 1778.
Swiss-born von Haller initially pursued a career as a physician and is credited with heralding modern-day physiology and neurology. However, his interest in botany also saw him collecting a large range of flower species, leading to his reputation as one of the most renowned botanists of the eighteenth century.
An English botanist, Banks embarked on a voyage to the Pacific Ocean on the HMS Endeavour with James Cook in 1763. After returning with a major collection of specimens, he became an adviser to King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew. The garden at the time was incomparable to any other botanical garden in the world.
Born in 1773, Brown developed a passion for mosses and accompanied Sir Joseph Banks on an expedition to Australia, where he gathered most of the species he explored in his lifetime. His contribution to the field is considered monumental, and several species of plants have been named in his honour.
Von Mohl was a major figure in the emerging fields of plant physiology and anatomy in the mid-19th century. His research paved the way for the development of the plant cell theory. A professor of botany in Germany, he was the first to propose that new cells are formed by cell division, and also provided the first clear explanation of the role of osmosis.
A German-Australian botanist who founded the National Herbarium of Victoria, Von Mueller was one of Australia’s most prominent 19th-century scientists. He was appointed government botanist for Victoria by Governor Charles La Trobe, travelled extensively on scientific expeditions, and is credited to have discovered nearly 800 new species in Australia.
Born in 1858, Chandra Bose was the first person to prove that plants have the ability to feel pain and affection. His highly sensitive instruments were able to detect the minute responses by living organisations to external stimuli. He was recognised as the first modern scientist of India by the Royal Institution in London.
Often referred to as the Father of chemurgy (which is the industrial and chemical use of organic raw materials), Carver encouraged the growth of alternative crops. Passionate about helping poor farmers increase their productivity, his work played a significant role in the revival of the agricultural economy in the late 19th century.
Born in the UK in 1879, Arber learnt the art of illustration from her father, which she applied to plant anatomy and morphology. As one of the eminent botanists of her time, her significant research work, including her work on floral structure, has formed the basis of a range of developments in plant science.
Born in 1880, Stopes was a British palaeobotanist who studied the influence of plants in relation to the evolution of life. She was the first female science academician at the University of Manchester, and the youngest person in Britain to attain a doctorate degree from the University College London.
Sahni earned a doctorate from the University of London in 1919 and was a pioneer in palaeobotanical research (the study of fossil plants). He became the Head of the Botany Department of the Lucknow University in India, and founded what is now the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in 1946.
Born in India in 1897, Ammal was a botanist best remembered for her work with sugarcane. An expert in cytogenetics (the genetic content of genes in cells), her work led to new findings on the evolution of species. Her research played a vital role in choosing plant varieties for cross-breeding in order to produce the sweetest sugarcane.
Margulis was born in the US in 1938 and as a biologist, completely altered the concept of how life came about on Earth. She eventually became the Distinguished Professor of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts. As a staunch evolutionist, her theoretical paper on mitosing cells is now considered as the landmark argument in endosymbiotic theory.
Searching for new plant species is an undertaking that scientists around the world aspire to. And a recent discovery by a student at Flinders University has provided fresh inspiration for botanists, and for all those who are interested in undertaking botany courses.
The fern-like species discovered is believed to be among the earliest plants on earth and thought to have existed in Australia over 359 million years ago. It was unearthed after PhD student Antoine Champreux undertook a fresh examination of a fossil that was discovered in the 1960s by amateur geologist, John Irving. Found on the banks of the Manilla River in Barraba NSW, the fossil was unearthed by a major flooding event in 1964, however, it remained in storage for more than 50 years.
The fossil dates back to a time when Australia was part of the super-continent Gondwana, and although diverse fish species existed in the oceans at this time, continents had no dinosaurs or flowering plants. Well-preserved fossils from this era are extremely rare, and its condition allowed Champreux to observe the walls of million-year-old cells. The plant was named genus Keraphyton (for the Greek name for the horn plant), and the species Keraphyton mawsoniae, in honour of Professor Ruth Mawson, a distinguished Australian palaeontologist who died in 2019.
Use your understanding of how plants grow to solve some of the complex biological issues of our rapidly changing world with a botany course, such as the Certificate of Botany!
