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The tea tree isn't related to the tea plant: it's an Australian myrtle that grows wild along streams and swampy flats in northern New South Wales and southeast Queensland. Its leaf oil became a commercial product in the 1920s.
📍 Central Africa (Cameroon to the Congo)
Despite nicknames like 'Chinese water bamboo', lucky bamboo is not a bamboo and not from China: it's a dracaena that grows wild in Central Africa, from Cameroon to the Congo. Its scientific name honours Henry Sander, a German-born orchid grower in England.
📍 Inland Australia
Wild budgies live across the dry interior of Australia, and every wild one is green and yellow. The blue, white and yellow pets are colour forms bred in captivity, where budgies have been raised since the 1850s.
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📍 Iberian Peninsula
Merino sheep were developed in medieval Spain, which guarded the fine-wool breed as a monopoly: smuggling one out could mean death. Merinos only reached Australia in 1797, via South Africa.
📍 Hilo, Hawaii
Rice, a burger patty and brown gravy, now crowned with a fried egg: loco moco was first served in 1949 at the Lincoln Grill in Hilo, Hawaii. Teen regulars named it after a friend nicknamed 'Crazy' (loco in Spanish).
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📍 Cooktown, Queensland, Australia
Joseph Banks wrote down 'kanguru' in 1770 at today's Cooktown, where Cook's ship was being repaired, from the Guugu Yimithirr word gangurru. The tale that it means 'I don't know' is a myth.
📍 Southeast Queensland & northern NSW, Australia
Macadamias are native to eastern Australia, the only widely grown food plant native to that continent. Seeds reached Hawaii in the 1880s, and Hawaii led world production for decades until Australia overtook it in 1997.