Banksia marginata
Banksia marginata is a species of tree or woody shrub in the plant genus Banksia found throughout much of southeastern Australia. It ranges from the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia to north of Armidale, New South Wales, and across Tasmania and the islands of Bass Strait. It grows in various habitats, including Eucalyptus forest, scrub, heathland and moorland.
About Banksia marginata in brief
Banksia marginata is a species of tree or woody shrub in the plant genus Banksia found throughout much of southeastern Australia. It ranges from the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia to north of Armidale, New South Wales, and across Tasmania and the islands of Bass Strait. It grows in various habitats, including Eucalyptus forest, scrub, heathland and moorland. The narrow leaves are linear and the yellow inflorescences occur from late summer to early winter. The response to bushfire varies. Some populations are serotinous: they are killed by fire and regenerate from large stores of seed which have been held in cones. Others regenerate from underground lignotubers or suckers from lateral roots. It has been used for timber, but is most commonly seen as a garden plant, with dwarf forms being commercially propagated and sold. It is a highly variable species, usually ranging from a small shrub around a metre tall to a 12-metre-high tree. Unusually large trees of 15 to possibly 30 m have been reported near Beeac in Victoria’s Western District as well as several locations in Tasmania. Small and elliptic, they measure 0.1 to 7cm long, 0.0– 2–0.0cm wide, and 0.5 to 5 cm high, in coastal and floodplain populations. In many populations, only a few follicles develop, with up to 150 developing on a single flower spike. The flower spikes fade to brown and then grey and develop woody follicles bearing the winged seeds.
They are composed of up to 1,000 individual flowers and arise from nodes on branchlets that are at least three years old. Many species of bird, in particular honeyeaters, forage at the flower spikes, as do native and European honeybees. The new branchlets are hairy at first but lose their hairs as they mature, with new growth a pale or pinkish brown. The leaves are alternately arranged on the stems on 2–5 mm long petioles, and characteristically toothed in juvenile or younger leaves long). The narrow adult leaves are dull green in colour and generally linear, oblong or wedge-shaped and measure 1.5–6 cm long and 0.3–1.3 cm wide. The bark is pale grey and initially smooth before becoming finely tessellated with age. They can have a grey or golden tinge in late budhesis, with the opening of the flower spike progressing up the flower Spike from the base to the top. Over time the flower spiked fades to grey, then grey, and the old flowers generally persist on the cone on the top of the spike for up to six months after flowering, generally on the coast of Tasmania. In coastal populations, these usually open and spontaneously release seed and grow spontaneously in floodplain and flood plain areas, usually in the summer.
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This page is based on the article Banksia marginata published in Wikipedia (as of Oct. 29, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
