The New South Wales waratah featured prominently in the folklore of the Darug and Tharawal people in the Sydney basin and Gandangara people to the southwest. A dreamtime legend from the Eora tells of a female wonga pigeon searching for her husband who has been lost while out hunting. A hawk attacks and wounds her, and she hides in a waratah bush. Her husband calls and as she struggles in the bush her blood turns the white waratah blooms red. A tale from the Burragorang Valley tells of a beautiful maiden named Krubi, who wore a red cloak of rock wallaby adorned with the feathers of the gang-gang cockatoo. She fell in love with a young warrior who did not return from battle. Grief-stricken, she died, and up from the ground grew the first waratah. The Dharawal people regarded it as a totem, using it in ceremonies and timing ceremonies to its flowering.