Petrophile conifera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Petrophile conifera | |
|---|---|
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| In Sandy Gully | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Proteales |
| Family: | Proteaceae |
| Genus: | Petrophile |
| Species: | P. conifera |
| Binomial name | |
| Petrophile conifera | |
| Synonyms[1] | |
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Petrophila conifera Meisn. orth. var. | |
Petrophile conifera is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a bushy, much-branched shrub with pinnate, sharply-pointed leaves, and oval heads of hairy, cream-coloured to yellowish white flowers.
Petrophile conifera is a bushy, much-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.3–1.5 m (1 ft 0 in – 4 ft 11 in) and has woolly-hairy young branchlets. The leaves are glabrous, 40–110 mm (1.6–4.3 in) long on a petiole 20–50 mm (0.79–1.97 in) long. They are rigid and needle-like, pinnately divided with sharply-pointed pinnae 4–35 mm (0.16–1.38 in) long. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branchlets in sessile, oval heads 20–30 mm (0.79–1.18 in) long, with hairy, lance-shaped involucral bracts at the base. The flowers are 8–15 mm (0.31–0.59 in) long, hairy, cream-coloured, creamy yellow or yellowish white. Flowering occurs from August to October and the fruit is a nut, fused with others in an oval head 10–30 mm (0.39–1.18 in) long.[2][3]
Taxonomy
Petrophile conifera was first formally described in 1855 by Carl Meissner in Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany from material collected by James Drummond.[4][5] The specific epithet (conifera) means "cone-bearing".[6]
In 2011, Michael Clyde Hislop and Kelly Anne Shepherd described two subspecies in the journal Nuytsia and the names are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:[7]
- Petrophile conifera Meisn. subsp. conifera has petioles 20–48 mm (0.79–1.89 in) long and involucral bracts 0.9–2.2 mm (0.035–0.087 in) wide;[8]
- Petrophile conifera subsp. divaricata B.L.Rye & K.A.Sheph.[9] has petioles 12–24 mm (0.47–0.94 in) long and involucral bracts 2.5–4.1 mm (0.098–0.161 in) wide.