Banksia brownii is a species of shrub that grows in southwest Western Australia. First collected in 1829 and published the following year, it is placed in Banksia subgenus Banksia. It is rare and endangered in its natural habitat, with all major populations currently threatened by Phytophthora cinnamomi dieback. Other threats include loss of habitat, commercial exploitation and changes to the fire regime.
About Banksia brownii in brief
Banksia brownii is a species of shrub that grows in southwest Western Australia. First collected in 1829 and published the following year, it is placed in Banksia subgenus Banksia, section Oncostylis, series Spicigerae. It is rare and endangered in its natural habitat, with all major populations currently threatened by Phytophthora cinnamomi dieback. Other threats include loss of habitat, commercial exploitation and changes to the fire regime. It usually grows as an upright bush between one and three metres high, but can also grow as an openly branched small tree to six metres in sheltered gullies. Flowers occur in typical Banksia inflorescences made up of hundreds of pairs of flowers densely packed in a spiral around a woody axis. B. brownii’s flower spike is a metallic red-brown colour, roughly cylindrical, 6 to 19 centimetres high and eight to ten centimetre wide. It prefers a sheltered position in soil with good drainage, and must be provided with some moisture over summer. The fruiting structure is a stout woody “cone”, around five centimetRES in diameter, with a hairy appearance caused by the persistence of old withered flower parts. Each follicle contains just one seed. This is shiny black, oval in shape, about 20 millimetres long, with brown papery wing. The bark is a grey- brown colour, smooth and thin, with lenticels.
The leaves are long and thin. Dark green and hairless above, they are easily recognised by their feather-like appearance. Each flower consists of a tubular perianth made of four united tepals, and one long wiry style. Perianths are cream at the base and grey-brown at the end. Styles are rusty red- brown with a cream tip, and downwardly hooked rather than straight. Flower spikes are held erect and are typically terminal on a branch; often other branchlets grow up and around a spike from below. It was first collected near King George Sound in. 1829 by William Baxter, who named it in honour of botanist Robert Brown. It occurs among heath on rocky mountain slopes; further south it occurs among jarrah woodland in shallow nutrient-poor sand. The species is highly valued by Australia’s horticultural and cut flower industries, and is widely cultivated in areas not exposed to dieback, such as the Stirling Range. It would stand over a century for a generic name Banksia f, on the grounds that Banksia had been published in 1775 as Jstia Rstia. For more information, visit the Department of Environment and Conservation’s website: http://www.environment.gov.au/banksia-brownii/brownii-and-the-wildlife-benefits-of-banking-brown-bankers-wildlifes.
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This page is based on the article Banksia brownii published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
