Scarlet Featherflower

Verticordia grandis carries no real tradition as a culinary or medicinal herb. Its story instead belongs to the Western Australian bush and to the florists and native plant collectors who prize it. It is often called the finest of the featherflowers, a group of roughly one hundred Verticordia species found almost nowhere else on earth, and its flame red to orange blooms, the largest of any Verticordia, have made it a favorite in the cut flower trade since growers began working with Australian natives in the twentieth century. Local wildflower pickers and bushland admirers have long sought it out simply for the beauty of a single flowering branch.