''Hakea rigida'' is a flowering plant 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 ...

with a restricted distribution 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 the western

Goldfields Goldfield or Goldfields may refer to: Places * Goldfield, Arizona, the former name of Youngberg, Arizona, a populated place in the United States * Goldfield, Colorado, a community in the United States * Goldfield, Iowa, a city in the United State ...

region of Western Australia. It is a dense shrub with grey bark and sprays of pink flowers in spring.

Description

''Hakea rigida'' is a dense, erect to spreading shrub high and wide. The small branches are densely matted with silky hairs at flowering. The dark green leaves are variable, they may be needle-like long, in diameter, stiff, slightly curved, and ending in a sharp point. The leaves have 5-9 longitudinal veins, sparsely covered in silky hairs and often twisted where they join the branch. The flat leaves are thick and concave with 5 prominent longitudinal veins. The dark or pale pink

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 ...

of 18-20 scented flowers are borne in leaf axils on smooth short pink stalks. 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 bright pink and the

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. Flowering occurs from September to October and the fruit are either oblong or egg-shaped about long and wide and form in small clusters. The surface is mostly smooth with occasional small blister-like protuberances, ending with a small thin beak.

Taxonomy and naming

''Hakea rigida'' was first formally described in 1999 by

Laurence Haegi Laurence is an English and French given name (usually female in French and usually male in English). The English masculine name is a variant of Lawrence and it originates from a French form of the Latin ''Laurentius'', a name meaning "man from ...

and the description was published in ''

Flora of Australia The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 30,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens. The flora has strong affinities with the flora of Gondwana, ...

''. Haegi kept the name that

Charles Austin Gardner Charles Austin Gardner (6 January 1896 – 24 February 1970) was an English-born Western Australian botanist. Biography Born in Lancaster, in England, on 6 January 1896, Gardner emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909, whe ...

had used to label specimens stored in the

Western Australian Herbarium The Western Australian Herbarium is the State Herbarium in Perth, Western Australia. It is part of the State government's Department of Parks and Wildlife, and has responsibility for the description and documentation of the flora of Western Austr ...

. 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 ...

''(rigidus)'' is believed to be from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''rigidus'' meaning "rigid" referring to the leaves.

Distribution and habitat

''Hakea rigida'' is an uncommon species growing from

Beacon A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...

Bonnie Rock Bonnie Rock is a small town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia. The town was once the terminus of the railway to Beacon. The name of the town originated from a rock formation that is situated close to the town, that was named by a s ...

, Westonia the

Yilgarn The Yilgarn Craton is a large craton that constitutes the bulk of the Western Australian land mass. It is bounded by a mixture of sedimentary basins and Proterozoic fold and thrust belts. Zircon grains in the Jack Hills, Narryer Terrane have bee ...

north of

Southern Cross Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for c ...

. Recorded only from a few specimens, occurring in mallee-shrubland, open sand plains to gravelly soils.

Conservation status

''Hakea rigida'' is classified as " Priority Two" by the Government of Western Australia

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

, meaning that it is rare or threatened due to it being known from one to five populations.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18080326 rigida Eudicots of Western Australia