Four grounds, and what the Act lets you pick

On the Coast, the same flower meets a different rule on each kind of ground: the parks protect everything that grows in them, the licence rules reach the picker who wants to sell, and the waratah has no wild harvest route at all.

General information from NSW Government sources; the native plant law is in the Biodiversity Conservation Act and the parks’ own rules, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service is the place to ask; the weed rules are the ones the Department of Primary Industries’ WeedWise lists for the region.

A key, in botany’s sense: answer one question, and the next narrows the plants until one rule is left.

Growing in a national park, nature reserve or state conservation area (Brisbane Water, Bouddi, Wyrrabalong, Munmorah, Dharug)Ask NPWS first.

Growing anywhere elseGo to 2.

On NPWS’s Bouddi National Park page, visitors are asked to help preserve the natural environment and cultural sites, and the page states that all fauna, flora and rock formations are protected.
A weed under a prohibition on dealings (such as bitou bush, lantana, Cape broom)Never sold, swapped or offered.

Any other plantGo to 3.

The region’s bitou bush entry forbids five dealings: importing it into the state, and selling, bartering, exchanging or offering it for sale. WeedWise lists the same line for lantana and for Cape broom. And anyone who deals with any plant, and knows, or ought to know, of a biosecurity risk, must prevent, eliminate or minimise that risk as far as is reasonably practicable.
A protected species, picked or cultivated for cut flowers or foliage, for commercial purposesGo to 4.

Anything else (a farm flower, a rose in a garden)No cut-flower licence; a threatened plant: see below.

The department’s licensing page asks for a biodiversity conservation licence to pick or cultivate protected plant species for cut flowers and foliage for commercial purposes; the species are the ones listed in Part 1 of Schedule 6 of the Biodiversity Conservation Act. And you do not need a licence to pick, keep, buy or sell protected plants grown as a hobby rather than for a commercial purpose, or material obtained from a licensed harvester or grower, or to pick a protected plant cultivated on private land if you are the landholder or have the landholder’s consent. Whatever the route, the legal sourcing of plant material from licensed stock or with the landowner’s permission is always required. Threatened species must not be harvested from the wild for commercial use, and may be harvested from plantation grown (cultivated) plants under a grower licence.
Group 4: waratahGrower licence only; no wild harvest.

Group 3: Christmas bells, flannel flower, Gymea lily flowers, grass tree flowersA licence, and NPWS tags.

Groups 1 and 2: boronias, hairpin banksia, drumsticks, Gymea lily leaves, grass tree leavesA licence; a forest products licence in a state forest.

The cut-flower plan’s schedule puts the species at high risk of exploitation in Group 4, where only grower licences may be issued; Group 3 needs a licence and Biodiversity and Heritage Regulator tags on all material, whether from the wild or cultivated; Groups 1 and 2 need a wild harvest or grower licence and no tags, and picking in a state forest runs under a forest products licence from the Forestry Corporation instead.

1a Ask NPWS first.
1b Go to 2.
2a Never sold or swapped.
2b Go to 3.
3a Go to 4.
3b No cut-flower licence.
4a Grower licence only.
4b A licence and tags.
4c Licence or forest licence.

The flowers at the ends have one row each in the register on the home page: waratah, christmas bells, flannel flower, gymea lily, grass tree, boronia, hairpin banksia, drumsticks. All of the key, with every row, is on the centralcoastflowers.com.au home page.

The ground the key asks about first

The first question a key asks about a plant is where it is growing, and on the Central Coast the first answer is a park. NPWS places Brisbane Water National Park on the central coast near Gosford, north of Sydney, and Bouddi National Park on the Central Coast near Gosford as well; the key above names them with Wyrrabalong, Munmorah and Dharug.

In the parks the rule is short. Bouddi’s visitor information asks visitors to help preserve the natural environment and cultural sites, and among what it asks for: “all fauna, flora and rock formations are protected”.

The plants are much of what the parks are visited for. NPWS’s page for Brisbane Water National Park leads with the park’s colourful spring wildflowers, and its own account of the park says the landscape comes alive with wildflowers from late winter to early spring. For the Bouddi coastal walk, spring is the season NPWS recommends for the wildflowers.

So the key’s first end is “Ask NPWS first”. Next comes what picking includes, in the department’s own list.

The four grounds, and what each one allows

What picking includes

The Act here is the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, which protects native plants in New South Wales.

The department’s licensing page puts the offence this way: “Under the BC Act, it is an offence to pick, possess, buy or sell native plants listed in the Act for commercial purposes without a licence.” The plants the page lists under that sentence are protected plant species listed in Schedule 6 and threatened plant species listed in Schedule 1, and the licence it asks for, to pick or cultivate them for commercial purposes, is a biodiversity conservation licence.

Picking, in the department’s own words, is not one act.

Picking a plant includes to gather, take, cut, remove from the ground, destroy, poison, crush or injure the plant or any part of the plant.
Definitions, Apply for a cut-flower licence, NSW Environment and Heritage

Eight acts sit in that list, and none of them has to be aimed at a sale to happen: the definition reaches a stem cut, a plant lifted, a flower crushed on the way past. What the licence rules add is a purpose, not a gentler meaning.

Four grounds, and what each one allows

The key’s first question is geography, and so is the licence scheme: the same flower meets different paper on different ground. Worked through against the department’s licensing page and the cut-flower plan, the grounds number four.

The four grounds
The ground	What the rules allow there
A park, reserve or state conservation area	Ask NPWS first. The parks’ own line is the one Bouddi’s visitor information gives: all fauna, flora and rock formations are protected.
Private land, yours or with the owner’s consent	A protected plant cultivated on private land may be picked if you are the landholder or have the landholder’s consent, and no licence is needed for that. But the material’s legal sourcing, from licensed stock or with the permission of the landowner, is always required, licence or not.
A state forest	Picking can run under a forest products licence from the Forestry Corporation instead of a departmental licence, for the species whose group allows it: the plan’s Group 1 and Group 2 headings both read “Species subject to licensing unless on state forest property”, and no NPWS tags are required for either group.
Material from a licensed harvester or grower	Picking, keeping, buying or selling material that came from a licensed harvester or grower needs no licence of your own. The wild harvest licence itself is for picking cut flowers and foliage of protected plants from naturally occurring stands on property the licensee owns, and since 1 January 2018 licences to harvest have only been issued to land owners. A grower licence covers growing, cultivating and propagating protected and threatened plants for commercial use, from artificially cultivated stock, on land the grower owns or occupies.

The waratah, and the flannel flower

Two of the Coast’s flowers show how differently the same list can land. The waratah sits in the plan’s Group 4, the group for species considered to be at high risk of exploitation, where in general only grower licences may be issued.

The plan’s waratah appendix is plainer still: conservation concerns are held for the genus in the wild, and so that a viable wild population is kept, no wild harvest licences will be issued, while grower licences are available. For a waratah, then, the key’s first question ends with nobody picking it from the wild to sell at all, whatever licence they hold. Threatened species take the same road: picking and harvesting them from the wild is not permitted under a wild harvest or approved harvest licence, and they come to the whole plant and cut-flower trade as grower-only products.

The flannel flower is the other kind of answer. Actinotus species other than A. minor sit in Group 3, which needs a licence and Biodiversity and Heritage Regulator tags on all material, whether it was acquired from the wild or cultivated, and the plan’s flannel flower appendix adds one NPWS tag per bunch for plants harvested under a wild harvest or grower licence.

It flowers in spring and early summer, often en masse, and on the Coast the season has a place attached: NPWS promises spring walkers on the Coast walking track near Bateau Bay wildflowers coming into bloom, including ground orchids and flannel flowers.

One more thing about the waratah, from the state’s own pages: it is the floral emblem of New South Wales, and the government’s symbols page ends its entry with a short sentence, “The Waratah is protected by law.” The botanic gardens’ emblem page gives the date it was proclaimed, 24 October 1962.

The paper each market stem carries, worked through on one bunch