''Hakea platysperma'', commonly known as the cricket ball hakea, is a shrub 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 ...

. It has long, sharply pointed, needle-shaped leaves and fragrant cream-reddish flowers in clusters from July to October. It 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 The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

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 ...

Description

''Hakea platysperma'' is a single stemmed, spreading shrub to tall and a similar width. The branchlets and young leaves are covered with rusty coloured, flattened, smooth hairs. The thick, rigid leaves are needle-shaped, long, wide, yellowish at the base and ending with a sharp point long. Sweetly scented creamy reddish to yellow flowers appear in profusion in axillary

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 ...

. Flowering occurs from July to October and the fruit are globose, cricket ball shaped and long by up to in diameter, with a smooth surface.

Taxonomy and naming

Cricket ball hakea was first formally described in 1842 by Joseph Dalton Hooker and the description was published in his book ''

Icones Plantarum ''Icones Plantarum'' is an extensive series of published volumes of botanical illustration, initiated by Sir William Jackson Hooker. The Latin name of the work means "Illustrations of Plants". The illustrations are drawn from herbarium specimens o ...

''. 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 ...

''(platysperma)'' is derived from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''platy'' - wide, and ''sperma'' - seed, referring to the large, circular fruit.

Distribution and habitat

''Hakea platysperma'' grows in sand, sandy clay and occasionally over

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 ...

in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Geraldton Sandplains and Mallee

biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...

of Western Australia.

Conservation status

''Hakea platysperma'' is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government.

Cultivation

The main horticultural appeal of this species is the giant woody seed pods, which have been used in cut flower arrangements. ''H. platysperma'' can be grown in a sunny position in well-drained soil.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q5640405 platysperma Eudicots of Western Australia Plants described in 1842 Taxa named by Joseph Dalton Hooker