''Isopogon drummondii'' is a small shrub of 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 to the

southwest 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 ...

. It was first formally described in 1843 by

Henri Antoine Jacques Henri Antoine Jacques (1782 Chelles, Seine-et-Marne – 1866) was a French nurseryman specialising in roses, and noted for having introduced the Bourbon Group of roses from Île Bourbon to France. It was illustrated by Pierre-Joseph Redouté ( ...

in ''Annales de Flore et de Pomone'' from an unpublished description by Hügel. In 1870,

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studi ...

described ''I. drummondii'' in ''

Flora Australiensis ''Flora Australiensis: a description of the plants of the Australian Territory'', more commonly referred to as ''Flora Australiensis'', and also known by its standard abbreviation ''Fl. Austral.'', is a seven-volume flora of Australia published be ...

'' but since the name had already been used for a different species, Bentham's name was a

Nomen illegitimum ''Nomen illegitimum'' (Latin for illegitimate name) is a technical term, used mainly in botany. It is usually abbreviated as ''nom. illeg.'' Although the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants uses Latin terms for other ki ...

. In a 2019 paper in the journal ''

Nuytsia ''Nuytsia floribunda'' is a hemiparasitic tree found in Western Australia. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the ...

'',

Barbara Lynette Rye Barbara Lynette Rye is an Australian botanist born in 1952. Barbara Rye has been associated with the Western Australian Herbarium, where her work as a taxonomist has been the source of many new descriptions of plants. The number of taxa recorded ...

and

Terry Desmond Macfarlane Terry Desmond Macfarlane (born 1953) is a botanist and taxonomist, who has worked in Australia. A senior research scientist at the Western Australian Herbarium, Macfarlane is associate editor of its journal ''Nuytsia'' and currently collaborat ...

proposed that ''I. drummondii'' is a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

of ''Isopogon sphaerocephalus'' subsp. ''spaerocaphalus''. Rye and Macfarlane also proposed that Bentham was not aware of Jacques's ''I. drummondii'' because the description had been published in a horticultural magazine, from specimens grown in a greenhouse in France. They suggested the new name ' Isopogon autumnalis'' for Bentham's ''I. drummondii'' and that since Lindley's ''I. sphaerocaphalus'' was described first, ''I. drummondii'' Hügel ex Jacques would be reduced to synonymy. As at November 2020, the

Australian Plant Census The Australian Plant Census (APC) provides an online interface to currently accepted, published, scientific names of the vascular flora of Australia, as one of the output interfaces of the national government Integrated Biodiversity Information Syst ...

continues to accept the name ''Isopogon drummondii'' Hügel ex Jacques.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18075658 drummondii Eudicots of Western Australia Plants described in 1870