Steve Hopper

Well, I was lucky enough in 1978, just as I was writing up my PhD, I had two job offers at the same time.

One was to do a postdoc in California, but the other one was as a flora conservation research and policy officer with the then Department of Fisheries and Wildlife in Western Australia.

By then I was hooked on WA.

I mean, just the fact that the floral emblem of Western Australia, the kangaroo paw, hadn't been studied was indicative of how much more we had to learn.

And I figured getting a job where my primary aim was to help conserve the whole flora was

was a dream come true.

So I got into that job and then I thought, well, I know a little bit about kangaroo paws by this stage and nothing much else.

So what will I do?

And I thought, well, what about let's look at the top of the canopy.

Let's look at kangaroo paws and orchids at the bottom of the canopy.

And I got hooked on the very first eucalypt that came my way.

There was

a beautiful species called Eucalyptus caesia, which is now one of my Aboriginal gifted totems.

It's got red flowers, reddish-brown curly bark, white branchlets.

Very rare in the wild, only occurs on granite rocks, about 25 granite rocks east of Perth.

One of the names in cultivation for it is Silver Princess, and it is regarded by many as the most beautiful of eucalypts.

And someone came in and said, look, there's this rumour that one of the 25 populations has been devastated by commercial seed collectors.

You know, they chainsawed down the population to get seed from this thing.

Do you want to go and have a look at it and ascertain is that true?

So that was one of my first field-based research challenges.