''Grevillea eriostachya'', also known as flame grevillea, orange grevillea, or honey grevillea, 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 western parts of Australia. It is a shrub with a leafy base, mostly linear leaves and conical groups of bright yellow flowers on long canes above the foliage.

Description

''Grevillea eriostachya'' is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has a leafy base with long, arching flowering branches covered with woolly hairs. The leaves are long, those on the flowering stems linear, other leaves sometimes with two to seven linear lobes, the leaves or lobes mostly long. The flowers are borne above the foliage in sometimes branched, conical groups of about 100 to 200 flowers on peduncles up to long, the

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the grc, ῥάχις [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this c ...

long, the flowers at the base of each group opening first. The flowers are green in bud, later bright yellow and woolly-hairy, 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. Flowering occurs in all months and the fruit is a follicle long.

Taxonomy

''Grevillea eriostachya'' was first formally described in 1840 by

John Lindley John Lindley FRS (5 February 1799 – 1 November 1865) was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist. Early years Born in Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four children of George and Mary Lindley. George Lindley w ...

in ''

A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony "A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony", also known by its standard botanical abbreviation ''Sketch Veg. Swan R.'', is an 1839 article by John Lindley on the flora of the Swan River Colony. Nearly 300 new species were published in 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 ...

(''eriostachya'') means "woolly flower-spike".

Distribution and habitat

Flame grevillea grows in heath or shrub on sandplains and is widespread in arid and semi-arid areas of Western Australia, the south-west of the Northern Territory and far north-western South Australia.

Ecology

Nectar Nectar is a sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists ...

-eating birds are attracted to the flowers.

Uses

Because of the sweet taste of the shrub's flowers,

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

used it as a sweetener and to add variety to their meals.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3009802 eriostachya Eudicots of Western Australia Flora of South Australia Flora of the Northern Territory Proteales of Australia Taxa named by John Lindley Plants described in 1840