''Banksia chamaephyton'', commonly known as the fishbone banksia, is a species of shrub that is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to Western Australia. It has prostrate, underground stems, pinnatipartite leaves, cream-coloured and brown flowers arranged in spikes surrounded by hairy

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s. It grows in

kwongan Kwongan is plant community found in south-western Western Australia. The name is a Bibbelmun (Noongar) Aboriginal term of wide geographical use defined by Beard (1976) as Kwongan has replaced other terms applied by European botanists such as ...

near the lower west coast.

Description

''Banksia chamaephyton'' is a shrub that typically grows to high and wide and forms a

lignotuber A lignotuber is a woody swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem, such as by fire. Other woody plants may develop basal burls as a similar survival strategy, often as a response t ...

. It has prostrate, underground stems in diameter and hairy when young. The leaves are erect, long, wide on a petiole long and has between ten and thirty linear lobes on each side. The flowers are cream-coloured with a brown tip and arranged in a head long surrounded at the base by velvety involucral bracts. The

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower, and structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepals when ...

is long and the

pistil Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

curved and long. Flowering occurs from late October to early December and there are up to fifteen elliptic follicles in each head, the follicles long, high and wide.

Taxonomy and naming

''Banksia chamaephyton'' was first formally described in 1981 by Alex George from specimens he collected west of Mogumber in 1971. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''chamaephyton'') is derived from

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

words meaning "low-growing" and "plant", referring to the prostrate habit of this species.

Distribution and habitat

Fishbone banksia grows in kwongan between Eneabba and Mogumber.

Conservation status

This banksia is classified as " Priority Four" by the Government of Western Australia

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

, meaning that is rare or near threatened.

Use in horticulture

Seeds do not require any treatment, and take around 25 days to

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Banksia chamaephyton chamaephyton Eudicots of Western Australia Plants described in 1981