''Grevillea mimosoides'', commonly known as caustic bush, 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 northern Australia. It is a shrub or small tree with curved, narrowly elliptic or egg-shaped leaves and greenish-white to cream-coloured or pale yellow flowers.

Description

''Grevillea microstyla'' is shrub or tree that typically grows to a height of and has thick, furrowed grey bark. Its leaves are curved, narrowly elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide. The flowers are usually arranged on the ends of branches in cylindrical clusters long and are greenish-white to cream-coloured or pale 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 in most months with a peak from July to September, and the fruit is a flattened elliptic to oval follicle long.

Taxonomy

''Grevillea mimosoides'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in '' Transactions of the Linnean Society of London'' from specimens collected near the coast of the

Gulf of Carpentaria The Gulf of Carpentaria (, ) is a large, shallow sea enclosed on three sides by northern Australia and bounded on the north by the eastern Arafura Sea (the body of water that lies between Australia and New Guinea). The northern boundary is ...

. 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 ...

(''mimosoides'') means "'' Mimosa''-like".

Distribution and habitat

Caustic bush grows in shrubland or woodland, often in seasonally wet areas, and is found in the northern and western

Kimberley Kimberly or Kimberley may refer to: Places and historical events Australia * Kimberley (Western Australia) ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Kimberley * Kimberley Warm Springs, Tasmania * Kimberley, Tasmania a small town * County of Kimberley, a ...

region of Western Australia, the northern part of the Northern Territory, and north of Cloncurry, Chillagoe and

Mareeba Mareeba is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Mareeba in Far North Queensland, Australia. Between 2008 and 2013, it was within the Tablelands Region. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word meaning ''meeting of the waters'' ...

in northern Queensland.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15580440 mimosoides Eudicots of Western Australia Flora of the Northern Territory Flora of Queensland Proteales of Australia Plants described in 1810 Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)