''Hakea macraeana'', commonly known as the willow needlewood or Macrae's hakea, is a species of shrub native to eastern Australia. The species was first formally described 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 1886 in the ''Australian Journal of Pharmacy''.
The species name honours one George Macrae, who aided the original collector
William Baeuerlen
William Baeuerlen was a German botanical collector and explorer. He was born in Niedernhall as Leonhard Carl Wilhelm Bäuerlen. He became Ferdinand von Mueller's botanical collector in Australia from the 1880s, and later the collector for Josep ...
.
''Hakea macraeana'' grows as a shrub or small tree anywhere from 1 to 7.5 or 10 m (4–25 (35) ft) tall, and has drooping branches and needle-like leaves, which range from long,
and are soft but tipped with a sharp point.
The white or cream-white
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...
s appear along the stems from August to October,
and are composed of two to six individual small flowers.
Flowering is followed by the development of oval-shaped woody seed pods. Warty and brown, they are long and wide. Each contains two dark grey or dark brown seeds which are long and bear a membranous "wing".
[
The range is the south coast and southern tablelands of New South Wales to altitudes of .][ A population from Dorrigo in northern New South Wales has since been classified as a separate species '' H. ochroptera''.]sclerophyll
Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaf, leaves, short Internode (botany), internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is paral ...
forest on rocky soils.[ The species' response to bushfire is unknown.][
Rarely cultivated, the willow needlewood has potential as a screening plant. It adapts readily to cultivation and is tolerant of light or heavy soils.]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5640394
macraeana
Flora of New South Wales
Plants described in 1886
Taxa named by Ferdinand von Mueller