''Hakea kippistiana'' is a shrub in the family Proteacea and

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 Australia. It is a dense prickly shrub with sharp needle-shaped leaves with fragrant white, cream or pink flowers from November to February.

Description

''Hakea kippistiana'' is a woody shrub or small tree with spreading branches growing to a height of and forms a

lignotuber A lignotuber is a woody swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem, such as by fire. Other woody plants may develop basal burls as a similar survival strategy, often as a response t ...

. The branchlets are covered in white and rust coloured flattened hairs but quickly become smooth except at the leaf base. The dark green needle-shaped leaves are long and wide, ending with a hook at the apex. Flowering occurs from November to February and the flowers are strongly fragrant, white, cream or pink and arranged in groups of between 8 and 26. The groups are on a

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 and covered with rust-coloured hairs. The rachis has thickly matted hairs or more or less raised short silky rusty coloured hairs, occasionally white hairs. The

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

s are long and scantily covered with mostly white flattened soft silky hairs. 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 ...

is long and

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. The smooth grey to black egg-shaped fruit are long and wide with a wide longish beak and short eroded horns. The light brown to grey-yellow seeds have a single wing down one side.

Taxonomy and naming

The species was first formally described by the botanist

Carl Meissner Carl Daniel Friedrich Meissner (1 November 1800 – 2 May 1874) was a Swiss botanist. Biography Born in Bern, Switzerland on 1 November 1800, he was christened Meisner but later changed the spelling of his name to Meissner. For most of his 40 ...

in 1855 in ''New Proteaceae of Australia'' as part of

William Jackson Hooker Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew he ...

's work ''Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany''. 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 ...

honours

Richard Kippist Richard Kippist (1812–1882) was an English botanist and librarian. Life Kippist was born in Stoke Newington, London, on 11 June 1812. He worked as a clerk in the office of Joseph Woods, F.L.S., architect, with whom he shared an interest in b ...

, who was once the librarian of the Linnean Society and was particularly interested in Australian plants.

Distribution and habitat

''Hakea kippistiana'' is endemic to many scattered areas in the Wheatbelt and Goldfields-Esperance regions of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

where it grows in red sandy soils around

laterite Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18081585 kippistiana Eudicots of Western Australia Plants described in 1855 Taxa named by Carl Meissner