Plants of South Eastern NSW

This key is designed for anyone who has an interest in finding out about the plants of south eastern New South Wales. It includes 3209 species, accompanied by about 15,000 images.

The key uses a limited number of easily seen characters using a minimum of technical terms to help with identification of plants. It is not designed to key out to a single species, though sometimes it does. It is designed to narrow down the possibilities of what the plant might be to a limited number of species. The photos may then help you decide what your plant is.

Routine use of a hand lens or a macro app on your mobile phone will make identification easier, in particular for the feature Number of florets/tiny flowers in a flower head.

Area covered by the key
The northern boundary is at 33.4° S, i.e. from Gosford and Bathurst to about 60 km NNW of West Wyalong. The western boundary is at 146.9° E, about 60 km NNW of West Wyalong to Albury. The southern boundary is the NSW/Victorian border.

Plant Distributions
Plant distributions are derived from the maps generated for individual species in Spatial Portal, Atlas of Living Australia https://spatial.ala.org.au/ and from personal observation, and occasionally from the NSW Department of Environment and Heritage Bionet Atlas http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/atlaspublicapp/UI_Modules/ATLAS_/AtlasSearch.aspx.

Records dated before 1 January 1983 have been disregarded. Distributions are given only for within the area covered by this key.

Coastal records are from east of the escarpment west of Sydney and east of the hills inland from the Princes Highway. Records in the ranges are from the escarpment west of Sydney and the hills west of the Princes Highway to the western edges of the large national parks running south from the Blue Mountains to the Victorian border. Records on the tablelands are from west of the large national parks in the ranges to the Hume Highway. The eastern boundary of the Western Slopes runs south from north of Canowindra and along the Hume Highway to Albury. A description of the Western Slopes is at https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/biodiversity/bioregions/bioregions-of-nsw/south-western-slopes

Plant Names

Plant names are those in the Australian Plant Census as at March 2023. In cases where the Council of Heads of Australian Herbaria has not yet made a determination, plant names published in http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/. Where a name is not listed in PlantNET, the names in https://vicflora.rbg.vic.gov.au/ are used.

About the author

Betty Wood, by training a pharmacologist, developed an interest in wildflowers and their identification many years ago when she first settled in Canberra. Her mother-in-law, an English botanist, helped her to learn to use botanical keys to identify Australian plants. She is co-author (with her late husband Don) of Flowers of the South Coast & Ranges of New South Wales in three volumes, Flowers of the ACT & Region, and sole author of S