''Hakea recurva'', commonly known as jarnockmert, is a flowering shrub or small tree 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 an area in the

Mid West The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

, northern Wheatbelt and the Goldfields-Esperance regions of Western Australia. It has creams-white to yellow flowers and thick, prickly, curved leaves.

Description

''Hakea recurva'' is a tall shrub or small tree typically growing to a height of and does not form 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 ...

. It is multi-stemmed with branchlets densely covered in fine, flattened, silky hairs and quickly becoming smooth. The fragrant

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 ...

may have 20-40 large cream-yellow flowers in clusters in the leaf axils. The leaves may be straight or recurved ending with a sharp point. Flowering occurs from June to October and the fruit have a smooth surface, obliquely egg-shaped long and ending in broad short beak.

Taxonomy and naming

''Hakea recurva'' was first formally described in 1856 by

Carl Meisner 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 ...

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

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 ...

(''recurva'') means "curved", referring to the leaves.

Distribution and habitat

''Hakea recurva'' grows in open scrub or mulga on granitic loam, sand, sandy-clay, gravel and

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 ...

. Occurs in area bounded by the Murchison River, Laverton and

Israelite Bay Israelite Bay is a bay and locality on the south coast of Western Australia. Situated in the Shire of Esperance local government area, it lies east of Esperance and the Cape Arid National Park, within the Nuytsland Nature Reserve and the Grea ...

. There are two subspecies: * ''Hakea recurva'' subsp. ''arida'' The leaves are generally long and wide. The overlapping flower

bract In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, especially one associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves. They may be smaller, larger, or of ...

s long, smooth, reddish coloured with a light brown rounded rim. 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 long and the gland high. * ''Hakea recurva'' subsp. ''recurva'' The leaves are long and wide. The over-lapping flower

s long and pale coloured. The

s long and the gland high.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18083927

recurva ''Recurva'' is a genus of freshwater and free-living triclad platyhelminth that belongs to the Dugesiidae family. It contains two known species although, according to molecular evidences, there is probably a third one. Distribution Described spe ...

Eudicots of Western Australia