''Grevillea didymobotrya'' is a species of flowering plant in the family

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genera with about 1,660 known species. Together with the Platanaceae and Nelumbonaceae, they make up the order Pro ...

and 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 the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect shrub with

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leaves, the size and shape depending on subspecies, and cylindrical groups of yellow or cream-coloured flowers.

Description

''Grevillea didymobotrya'' is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of . It has simple leaves, either linear, more or less cylindrical, long and wide, or mostly narrowly elliptic, long and wide, depending on subspecies. The flowers are arranged in cylindrical

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

s long and are yellow, 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 glabrous. Flowering occurs from May to October and the fruit is an elliptic to oval follicle long.

Taxonomy

''Grevillea didymobotrya'' by Carl Meissner in ''

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 ...

'' in 1856, from material collected by James Drummond in the

Swan River Colony The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just Swan River, was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, and it ...

. 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 ...

(''didymobotrya'') 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 "paired" and "bunch of grapes", referring to the racemes. In 1986, Donald McGillivray described two subspecies in his book, ''New Names in Grevillea (Proteaceae)'' and the names are 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 ...

: * ''Grevillea didymobotrya'' Meisn subsp. ''didymobotrya'' has more or less cylindrical to linear leaves long and wide with up to seventeen longitudinal ridges, and bright yellow or cream-coloured flowers mostly from August to January; * ''Grevillea didymobotrya'' subsp. ''involuta'' McGill. has mostly narrow elliptic to egg-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide with up to eleven longitudinal ridges on the lower surface, and yellow flowers in August and September.

Distribution and habitat

This species of grevillea grows in heath, shrubland or mallee on sandplains and is widespread from near

Shark Bay Shark Bay (Malgana: ''Gathaagudu'', "two waters") is a World Heritage Site in the Gascoyne region of Western Australia. The http://www.environment.gov.au/heritage/places/world/shark-bay area is located approximately north of Perth, on the ...

to Cundeelee Balladonia and

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. Subspecies ''involuta'' has a more restricted distribution between Geraldton and Mullewa.

Conservation status

Both subspecies of ''G. didymobotrya'' are listed as "not threatened" by the Government of Western Australia

Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions The Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) is the Western Australian government The Government of Western Australia, formally referred to as His Majesty's Government of Western Australia, is the Australian state de ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2710277 didymobotrya Endemic flora of Western Australia Eudicots of Western Australia Proteales of Australia Taxa named by Carl Meissner Plants described in 1856