One of These Will Be New Zealand's Flag

New Zealand got more than 10,000 submissions when it announced it was crowdsourcing a new flag; those designs were narrowed down to 40 semi-finalists and, now, four finalists. As the Guardian reports, all of them involve ferns: Three include variations on New Zealand's silver fern design, while the fourth shows an "unfurling fern frond" or koru. A government-appointed panel got the list down to the final four, and now New Zealanders will vote on them in a referendum starting in November. Then, in March of next year, the winner will go up against New Zealand's current flag. If the new design is chosen, it will be instituted within six months. (More New Zealand stories.)