''Banksia penicillata'' 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 a restricted area of New South Wales. It has smooth bark, serrated, elliptic to egg-shaped leaves, green to bluish flower buds, later yellow flowers in a cylindrical spike, and later still, up to one hundred narrow elliptical follicles in each spike, surrounded by the remains of the flowers.

Description

''Banksia penicillata'' is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has smooth bark but does not form 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 ...

. The leaves are

arranged In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchest ...

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral ...

and are long and wide on a petiole long. The sides of the leaves are serrated or lobed and the lower surface is covered with woolly white hairs. The flower buds are green to bluish and are followed by yellow flowers in a cylindrical spike long with woolly-hairy involucral bracts long at the base of the spike. 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'' ...

long and slightly curved. Flowering occurs from March to June and up to one hundred elliptical follicles long and surrounded by the remains of the flowers, develop in each spike.

Taxonomy and naming

''Banksia conferta'' was first formally described in 1981 by Alex George in the journal ''

Nuytsia ''Nuytsia floribunda'' is a hemiparasitic tree found in Western Australia. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the ...

''. In the same publication he described two varieties, ''conferta'' and ''penicillata''. In 1996, George raised the variety ''penicillata'' to subspecies - ''B. conferta'' subsp. ''penicillata'', at the same time creating the

autonym Autonym may refer to: * Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym * Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name See also * Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...

''B. conferta'' subsp. ''conferta''. In the same year (1996),

Kevin Thiele Kevin R. Thiele is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Western Australia and the director of Taxonomy Australia. He was the curator of the Western Australian Herbarium from 2006 to 2015. His research interests include ...

and

Pauline Ladiges Pauline Yvonne Ladiges (born 1948) is a botanist whose contributions have been significant both in building the field of taxonomy, ecology and historical biogeography of Australian plants, particularly Eucalypts and flora, and in science educa ...

raised subspecies ''penicillata'' to species status as ''B. penicillata'' in ''

Australian Systematic Botany ''Australian Systematic Botany'' is an international peer-reviewed scientific journal published by CSIRO Publishing. It is devoted to publishing original research, and sometimes review articles, on topics related to systematic botany, such as bio ...

'', based on the differences in habit, bark, leaf shape, indumentum and flower colour, and the fact that the two taxa were so far from each other. According to their morphological cladistic analysis, ''B. penicillata'' was sister taxon to ''B. paludosa''. In the same paper, the authors noted that the adult leaves of ''B. penicillata'' and ''B. paludosa'' have toothed margins, but ''B. conferta'' has entire margins. The change is accepted by the

Australian Plant Census The Australian Plant Census (APC) provides an online interface to currently accepted, published, scientific names of the vascular flora of Australia, as one of the output interfaces of the national government Integrated Biodiversity Information Syst ...

. 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 ...

(''penicillata'') is from the Latin word ''penicillatus'', meaning "like an artist's camel-hair brush. A 2013 molecular study by Marcel Cardillo and colleagues using chloroplast DNA and combining it with earlier results placed ''B. penicillata'' as a part of a lineage that gave rise to the three subspecies of ''B. integrifolia''.

Distribution and habitat

''Banksia penicillata'' grows on and near rocky sandstone cliffs in forest and woodland in a few locations in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.

Ecology

This banksia does not have a lignotuber but the follicles remain closed until burnt in a bushfire. The plant is killed by fire but regenerates from seed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banksia penicillata penicillata Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 1981 Taxa named by Alex George