Banksia epica is a shrub that grows on the south coast of Western Australia. A spreading bush with wedge-shaped serrated leaves and large creamy-yellow flower spikes, it grows as a spreading bushy shrub with many branches, from 30 centimetres to 3½ metres (1–11½ ft) tall. It has grey, fissured bark, and dark green, wedge-shaped leaves, 1½ to 5 centimetres (½–2 in) long. Flowers occur in Banksia's characteristic "flower spike", an inflorescence made up of hundreds of pairs of flowers densely packed in a spiral round a woody axis. B. epica's flower spike is yellow or cream-yellow in colour, cylindrical, 9 to 17 centimetres (3½–6½ inches) tall and around 6 centimetres (2½ inches) in diameter. It is known only from two isolated populations in the remote south east of the state, near the western edge of the Great Australian Bight. Both populations occur amongst coastal heath on cliff-top dunes of siliceous sand. One of the most recently described Banksia species, it was probably seen by Edward John Eyre in 1841, but was not collected until 1973, and was only recognised as a distinct species in 1988. There has been very little research on the species since. (Full article...)
... that the declaration of Christmas Peace is read publicly on Christmas Eve at the Old Great Square in the Finnish city of Turku, and has been almost every year since the 14th century?
After the pardoning of businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky(pictured), thousands of Russian prisoners are given amnesty, including two members of the rock band Pussy Riot.
1953 – On New Zealand's North Island, at Tangiwai, a railway bridge was damaged by a lahar and collapsed beneath a passenger train, killing 151 people.
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