''Grevillea paradoxa'', commonly known as the bottlebrush 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 the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect to spreading, prickly shrub with pinnatipartite leaves, the lobes linear, widely spreading and sharply pointed, and with cylindrical clusters of pale to dark pink or cream-coloured flowers with a pinkish-red style.

Description

''Grevillea paradoxa'' is an erect to open, spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of and has prickly foliage. Its leaves are long and pinnatipartite, with 3 to 9 widely spreading, sharply pointed, linear lobes, each usually dividing at least once, the end lobes long and wide. The flowers are arranged in erect, cylindrical clusters on a rachis long, and are pale to dark pink or cream-coloured, 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 the style pinkish-red or pale pink to cream. Flowering mainly occurs from June to October, and the fruit is an oval follicle long and hairy.

Taxonomy

''Grevillea paradoxa'' was first formally described in 1868 by

Ferdinand von Mueller Baron Sir Ferdinand Jacob Heinrich von Mueller, (german: Müller; 30 June 1825 – 10 October 1896) was a German-Australian physician, geographer, and most notably, a botanist. He was appointed government botanist for the then colony of Vict ...

in '' Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae'' from specimens collected by James Drummond. 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 ...

(''paradoxa'') means "unexpected, strange or marvellous", because von Mueller thought the plant looked ''

Hakea ''Hakea'' ( ) is a genus of about 150 species of plants in the Family ''Proteaceae'', endemic to Australia. They are shrubs or small trees with leaves that are sometimes flat, otherwise circular in cross section in which case they are sometimes d ...

''-like.

Distribution and habitat

Bottlebrush grevillea grows in mallee scrub and shrubland and is widespread between Mullewa, Wubin, Kondinin

Kalgoorlie Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area includ ...

and the

Die Hardy Range Die, as a verb, refers to death, the cessation of life. Die may also refer to: Games * Die, singular of dice, small throwable objects used for producing random numbers Manufacturing * Die (integrated circuit), a rectangular piece of a semicondu ...

in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Geraldton Sandplains, Mallee, Murchison and Yalgoo bioregions of south-western Western Australia.

Conservation status

This grevillea is listed as "not threatened", by the Western Australian Government

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 ...

Use in horticulture

The popular garden plant, ''Grevillea'' 'Dorothy Gordon', is a hybrid between '' G. sessilis'' and ''G. paradoxa''.

References