Banksia telmatiaea is a shrub that grows in marshes and swamps along the lower west coast of Australia. It grows as an upright bush up to 2 metres tall, with narrow leaves and a pale brown flower spike. The shrub grows amongst scrubland in seasonally wet lowland areas of the coastal sandplain between Badgingarra and Serpentine.
About Banksia telmatiaea in brief
Banksia telmatiaea is a shrub that grows in marshes and swamps along the lower west coast of Australia. It grows as an upright bush up to 2 metres tall, with narrow leaves and a pale brown flower spike, which can produce profuse quantities of nectar. First collected in the 1840s, it was not published as a separate species until 1981. The shrub grows amongst scrubland in seasonally wet lowland areas of the coastal sandplain between Badgingarra and Serpentine in Western Australia. Not much is known of its ecology or conservation biology. Reports suggest that it is pollinated by a variety of birds and small mammals. Like many members of series Abietinae, it has not been considered to have much horticultural potential and is rarely cultivated. The species generally flowers from April to August, although flowers have been observed as late as November. Only a small proportion of flowers go on to form follicles; in the case of B. tel matiaea, the proportion is around 4% for those that set some fruit. About 80% of fruiting structures set no fruit at all. The fruiting structure is a stout woody cone with a hairy appearance caused by the persistence of old withered flower parts. Up to 70 woody follicles, each of which contains a single seed, may be embedded in the cone.
The inflorescence is roughly oval to cylindrical, with a height of 3–5 cm and diameter of 4–7 cm. It contains between 500 and 900 golden brown to pale brown flowers. Each of which consists of a tubular perianth made up of four fused tepals, and one long wiry style. The styles are hooked rather than straight, and are initially trapped inside the upper peranth parts, but break free at anthesis. They take five to six weeks to develop from bud, then reach anthesis over a period of two weeks. Some flowers produce so much nectar that it drips to the ground. It was for a time informally referred to as Banksia aff. Sphaerocarpa, but it was eventually published by Alex George in his 1981 monograph The genus Banksia L f. f. George 9309\”. He found it most closely resembled B. leptophylla, but regarded its preference for swampy rather than sandy soils and winter flowering worthy of warrant status. Common names for the species are swamp fox banksia and rarely marsh banksia. He considered its closest relative to be B telmatia A. He differs from B telMatiaea in having larger flowers and longer leaves in having longer leaves and having a larger inflorescence because it has hooked styles, which is a typical Banksia flower spike section, on costylis.
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This page is based on the article Banksia telmatiaea published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
