Banksia Heliantha
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''Banksia heliantha'', commonly known as oak-leaved dryandra, 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 hairy stems, serrated, egg-shaped to wedge-shaped leaves, golden yellow flowers and partly woolly follicles.


Description

''Banksia heliantha'' is a robust, openly-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hairy stems 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 wedge-shaped to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide on a petiole up to long. The leaves have between five and fifteen sharply-pointed teeth up to long on each side. The flowers are borne in groups of between 140 and 160 in a head on the ends of branches with hairy, tapering linear involucral bracts up to long at the base of the head. The flowers have a golden yellow
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 that is hairy at its base and a yellow
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
glabrous Glabrousness (from the Latin ''glaber'' meaning "bald", "hairless", "shaved", "smooth") is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of ...
. Flowering occurs in March or from July to October and the follicles are egg-shaped, long and woolly in the upper half. Up to fifteen follicle form in each head.


Taxonomy and naming

The oak-leaved dryandra was first formally described in 1856 by
Carl Meissner Carl Daniel Friedrich Meissner (1 November 1800 – 2 May 1874) was a Swiss botanist. Biography Born in Bern, Switzerland on 1 November 1800, he was christened Meisner but later changed the spelling of his name to Meissner. For most of his 40 ...
who gave it the name ''Dryandra quercifolia'' and published the description in de Candolle's ''
Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis ''Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis'' (1824–1873), also known by its standard botanical abbreviation ''Prodr. (DC.)'', is a 17-volume treatise on botany initiated by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. De Candolle intended it as a summa ...
'' from specimens collected by James Drummond. 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 ...
(''quercifolia'') is a Latin word meaning "oak-leaved". In 2007,
Austin Mast Austin R. Mast is a research botanist. Born in 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000. He is currently a professor within the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University (FSU), and has been dire ...
and
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 ...
transferred all the ''Dryandra'' species to ''
Banksia ''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' range i ...
'' but there was already a different species known as ''
Banksia quercifolia ''Banksia quercifolia'', commonly known as the oak-leaved banksia, is a species of shrub that is endemic to the southwestern coast of Western Australia. It has smooth, greenish bark, wavy, wedge-shaped, serrated leaves, yellow, orange or brown f ...
'', so the name of this dryandra was changed to ''Banksia heliantha''. The epithet (''heliantha'') is 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 ...
, meaning "sun-flowered".


Distribution and habitat

''Banksia heliantha'' grows in dense
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 ...
on rocky hills near the south coast of Western Australia between the
Gairdner River Gairdner River is a river located in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The river was first recorded by Surveyor General John Septimus Roe in 1848, when carrying out exploration of the area, noting that natives referred to it an ...
and
East Mount Barren East Mount Barren is a quartzite peak of the Barren Range in Fitzgerald River National Park. It was sighted and named by explorer Matthew Flinders on 6 January 1802, together with two other peaks in the range, West Mount Barren and Middle Mount B ...
, and inland as far as the ranges north of
Ravensthorpe Ravensthorpe may refer to any of the following places. England *Ravensthorpe, Dewsbury in West Yorkshire **Ravensthorpe railway station, Dewsbury *Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire *Ravensthorpe, Peterborough in Cambridgeshire *Ravensthorpe, an histor ...
, in the
Esperance Plains Esperance Plains, also known as Eyre Botanical District, is a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia on the south coast between the Avon Wheatbelt and Hampton bioregions, and bordered to the north by the Mallee region. It is a pl ...
and Mallee
biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...
.


Conservation status

This banksia is classified as "not threatened" 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 ...
.


References

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q4856616 heliantha Endemic flora of Western Australia Plants described in 1856 Taxa named by Kevin Thiele