''Hakea mitchellii'', commonly known as desert hakea,VicFlora Flora of Victoria: ''Hakea mitchellii'' Miesn. Desert Hakea.
Retrieved 6 January 2019. is a shrub species 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 ...

Description

''Hakea mitchellii'' is a dense rounded medium to large shrub between high and wide and does not form a lignotuber. Leaves vary from terete, linear to ovate are long and wide. Profuse showy white or cream flowers appear in

racemes A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

in the leaf axils between October and January in the species' native range. Ellipsoidal to

ovoid An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.) it is given a more precise definition, which may include either one or ...

shaped fruit long by wide tapering to a small beak.

Taxonomy and naming

The species was first formally described in 1856 by Swiss botanist Carl Meissner and the description was published in ''

Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis ''Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis'' (1824–1873), also known by its standard botanical abbreviation ''Prodr. (DC.)'', is a 17-volume treatise on botany initiated by Augustin Pyramus de Candolle. De Candolle intended it as a summa ...

''. The type specimen was collected near Pyramid Hill during

Thomas Livingston Mitchell Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell (15 June 1792 – 5 October 1855), surveyor and explorer of Southeastern Australia, was born at Grangemouth in Stirlingshire, Scotland. In 1827 he took up an appointment as Assistant Surveyor General of New Sou ...

's 1836 expedition. ''Hakea mitchellii'' was named after Mitchell to honour the collector of the species.

Distribution and habitat

Desert hakea grows in mallee-heath vegetation on

calcareous Calcareous () is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines. In zoology ''Calcareous'' is used as an adje ...

sandy soil. Mainly a

South Australian South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

species occurring on Eyre, Yorke and Fleurieu Peninsulas, Kangaroo Island and south of the Murray River to Naracoorte, extending into western Victoria.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5640397 mitchellii Flora of South Australia Flora of Victoria (state) Proteales of Australia Plants described in 1846 Taxa named by Carl Meissner