''Grevillea huegelii'', commonly known as comb spider-flower or comb 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 southern continental Australia. It is an erect to low-lying shrub with divided leaves with mostly three to eleven sharply-pointed linear lobes, and clusters of red to pink flowers that are silky-hairy on the outside.

Description

''Grevillea huegelii'' is an erect to low-lying or straggling shrub that typically grows up to high and wide. Its leaves are long and wide in outline with mostly three to eleven sharply-pointed, linear lobes long and wide, the edges rolled under obscuring most of the lower surface. The flowers are arranged in loose clusters on a silky-hairy rachis usually long, 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 ...

straight, red to pink and silky-hairy on the outside, 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 most months with a peak from July to December, and the fruit is a glabrous follicle long.

Taxonomy

''Grevillea huegelii'' was first formally described in 1845 by Carl Meissner in Johann Georg Christian Lehmann's ''

Plantae Preissianae ''Plantae preissianae sive enumeratio plantarum quas in australasia occidentali et meridionali-occidentali annis 1838-1841 collegit Ludovicus Preiss'', more commonly known as ''Plantae preissianae'', is a book written by Johann Georg Christian Leh ...

'' from specimens collected near the Avon River, near

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

in 1839. 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 ...

(''huegelii'') honours

Charles von Hügel Charles von Hügel (born Carl Alexander Anselm Baron von Hügel; 25 April 1795 – 2 June 1870), sometimes spelt in English Huegel, was an Austrian nobleman, army officer, diplomat, botanist, and explorer, now primarily remembered for his tra ...

Distribution and habitat

Comb spider-flower grows in a variety of habitats, including mallee woodland and heath and has a

disjunct distribution In biology, a taxon with a disjunct distribution is one that has two or more groups that are related but considerably separated from each other geographically. The causes are varied and might demonstrate either the expansion or contraction of a s ...

in southern continental Australia. In Western Australia it is widespread from Moora to Borden and east to

Cundeelee Cundeelee is a small Aboriginal community in Western Australia located east of Perth and east of Kalgoorlie in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. At the 2006 census, Cundeelee had a population of 102. A ration depot had ...

and Balladonia. It is also widespread in the southern half of South Australia, the north-west of Victoria and in western New South Wales.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5607937 huegelii Proteales of Australia Flora of New South Wales Flora of South Australia Flora of Victoria (state) Eudicots of Western Australia Taxa named by Carl Meissner Plants described in 1845