''Grevillea stenomera'', commonly known as lace net 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 near-coastal areas in the west of Western Australia. It is a rounded,

glaucous ''Glaucous'' (, ) is used to describe the pale grey or bluish-green appearance of the surfaces of some plants, as well as in the names of birds, such as the glaucous gull (''Larus hyperboreus''), glaucous-winged gull (''Larus glaucescens''), g ...

shrub with

pinnatisect The following is a list of terms which are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (a single leaf blade or lamina) or compound (with several leaflets). The edge of the leaf may be regular o ...

leaves with 5 to 15 linear lobes, and pinkish and greenish-yellow flowers with a greenish style.

Description

''Grevillea stenomera'' is a rounded, silvery to bluish grey shrub that typically grows to a height of and has silky-hairy branchlets and a lignotuber. The leaves are pinnatisect, with 5 to 15 linear lobes long and wide on one side of the leaf stalk. The edges of the leaflets are rolled under concealing the lower surface apart from the midrib. The flowers are arranged in clusters of 20 to 30 along a silky- to softly-hairy rachis long. The flowers are pale-pink, orange-pink or reddish-pink, and greenish-yellow with a greenish style, 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 mainly occurs from August to October and the fruit is a wrinkled, oblong follicle long.

Taxonomy

''Grevillea stenomera'' was first formally described in 1864 by botanist

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 his '' Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae'' from specimens collected near the Murchison River by

Augustus Oldfield Augustus Frederick Oldfield (1821–1887) was an English botanist and zoologist who made large collections of plant specimens in Australia. Oldfield was born on 12 January 1821 in London, England. He made botanical collections in Tasmania, the coa ...

. 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 ...

(''stenomera'') means "narrow leaflets".

Distribution and habitat

Lace net grevillea is usually found in coastal scrub communities growing in sandy soils over or near

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

. The range of the plant extends from around Tamala Station, just south of

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 ...

, in the north down to around Kalbarri in the south and is found fairly close to the coast in the Geraldton Sandplains and Yalgoo bioregions of western Western Australia.

Conservation status

''Grevillea stenomera'' is listed as " Priority Two" 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 ...

, meaning that it is poorly known and from only one or a few locations.

Use in horticulture

The ''Grevillea''

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

sold by plant nurseries as "''Grevillea stenomera'' prostrate red" is thought to be a hybrid of '' Grevillea pinaster''.

References