''Isopogon teretifolius'', commonly known as nodding coneflower, is a species of 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 ...

and is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It is an erect shrub with cylindrical, sometimes branched leaves, and flattened-spherical heads of hairy pinkish flowers.

Description

''Isopogon teretifolius'' is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hairy, pale to greyish-brown branchlets. The leaves are cylindrical, long, sometimes

pinnately Pinnation (also called pennation) is the arrangement of feather-like or multi-divided features arising from both sides of a common axis. Pinnation occurs in biological morphology, in crystals, such as some forms of ice or metal crystals, and in ...

divided, the leaf and segments wide with a sharply-pointed tip. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branchlets in sessile, flattened-spherical, sometimes dropping heads in diameter with hairy, reddish brown, egg-shaped

involucral bracts 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, ...

at the base. The flowers are hairy, creamy pink, pale pink or white tinged with pink, and up to long. Flowering occurs from August to November and the fruit is a hairy nut, fused with others in a flattened-spherical to conical head in diameter.

Taxonomy

''Isopogon teretifolius'' was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 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 ...

(''teretifolius'') means " terete-leaved".

Distribution and habitat

Nodding coneflower grows in forest, shrubland and heath and is widely distributed in the Avon Wheatbelt, Esperance Plains, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest, Mallee and

Swan Coastal Plain The Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia is the geographic feature which contains the Swan River as it travels west to the Indian Ocean. The coastal plain continues well beyond the boundaries of the Swan River and its tributaries, as a geol ...

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 ...

in the south-west of Western Australia.

Conservation status

This isopogon is classified as "not threatened" 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 en ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q18082013 teretifolius Eudicots of Western Australia Plants described in 1810 Endemic flora of Western Australia Taxa named by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773)