''Banksia kingii'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species of tree or shrub in the

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus com ...

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 ...

''. It is known only from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

leaves and fruiting "cones" found in

Late Late may refer to: * LATE, an acronym which could stand for: ** Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, a proposed form of dementia ** Local-authority trading enterprise, a New Zealand business law ** Local average treatment effect, ...

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

at Melaleuca Inlet in western

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

. These were discovered by

Deny King Charles Denison (Deny) King (12 September 190912 May 1991) was an Australian naturalist, ornithologist, environmentalist, painter and tin miner. He spent fifty-five years living in Melaleuca in Port Davey, part of the remote South West Wilde ...

in the workings of his

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

mine Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging * Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun ...

. The climate was most likely as cool as or cooler than it is at

Melaleuca ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of '' Leptospermum''). They range in size ...

now (an average yearly temperature of 11.5C, an average temperature of the coldest month of 4.5 °C, a mean maximum temperature of the warmest month of 20 °C) , and possibly wetter, over 2400 mm annually. The leaves and fruiting cones were discovered at different locations, and since the sediment had been removed during mining, the

stratigraphy Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock (geology), rock layers (Stratum, strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary rock, sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigrap ...

of the fossils is unknown. The sediment from which they were recovered was

alluvial Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. Alluv ...

, consisting of large, well-rounded fragments of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

and

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock showing pronounced schistosity. This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a low-power hand lens, oriented in such a way that the rock is easily split into thin flakes o ...

. The fossil leaves are about 12 centimetres long and one centimetre wide and very thick and robust. They clearly belong to genus ''Banksia'', section ''

'', series '' Salicinae'', but not to any of the extant species in that series. The leaves of '' B. plagiocarpa'' (Dallachy's Banksia) are similar in form, shape and robustness, but differ strongly in structure. Leaves of '' B. saxicola'' (Grampians Banksia) are structurally the most similar to ''B. kingii'', but have a different shape. There also appear to be some affinities with '' B. marginata'' (Silver Banksia) and '' B. canei'' (Mountain Banksia), but insufficient to warrant the fossil's ascription to those species. The fossils are therefore considered representative of a new species, ''B. kingii''. The fossil fruiting structures are cylindrical, about 6 centimetres high and 4½ centimetres wide. The structure had lost its old flower parts. It appears to be most closely related to ''B. saxicola'' and ''B. canei'', with some similarities to ''B. marginata''. The taxonomic situation therefore appears highly similar for both leaves and fruiting structures, and so the fruiting structures are ascribed to ''B. kingii'' despite the absence of any direct connection to the fossil leaves. The species is believed to represent an extinct lineage. It is possible that it is an ancestor of ''B. marginata'', although ''B. marginata'' must have speciated well before the extinction of ''B. kingii'', given how widely it is now distributed. Extinction of ''B. kingii'' probably occurred in the late

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...

, and may have been caused by the climatic and physical disruption of

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

, or by increased fire frequency due to human activity. A formal description of ''B. kingii'' was published in 1991 by Gregory J. Jordan and Robert S. Hill, who named the species in honour of the discoverer, Deny King. Hence the species' full name is "''Banksia kingii'' Jordan & Hill". The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

and a number of other specimens are stored in the Department of Plant Science at the

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first pro ...

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Banksia kingii kingii Extinct flora of Australia Pleistocene plants Cenozoic Australia Prehistoric angiosperms