Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii
| Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| Order: | Proteales |
| Family: | Proteaceae |
| Genus: | Banksia |
| Species: | B. spinulosa |
| Variety: | B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii |
| Trinomial name | |
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Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii (Sieber ex Rchb.) A.S.George |
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Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii, sometimes given species rank as Banksia cunninghamii, is a shrub that grows along the east coast of Australia, in Victoria and New South Wales. It is a fast-growing non-lignotuberous shrub or small tree infrequently cultivated.
As with the other varieties of B. spinulosa (Hairpin Banksia), B. spinulosa var. collina grows as a multi-stemmed shrub with flower spikes that are all golden or golden with red or purple styles. Its leaves, flowers and fruit are all very similar to though of B. neoanglica (Hill Banksia), but unlike this and all other varieties of B. spinulosa, B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii lacks a lignotuber.
B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii was first collected by Franz Sieber in 1823, from Mount York in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. He gave it the name Banksia cunninghamii in honour of Alan Cunningham, and this name was honoured when a formal description of the taxon was published by Ludwig Reichenbach in 1827.
It retained its specific rank in Brown's 1830 arrangement of Banksia, being placed between B. spinulosa and B. collina (now B. spinulosa var. collina) in subgenus Banksia verae, the "True Banksias", because its inflorescence is a typical Banksia flower spike. It was placed immediately .
Over the next 26 years, three synonyms were published. The first, Banksia lambertii, was published by Richard Courtois in 1833. Then in 1853 Ferdinand von Mueller published Banksia prionophylla. This was a nomen nudum until the following year, when Carl Meissner republished the name with a formal description. This is now considered a taxonomic synonym of B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii, although in 1981 Alf Salkin proposed to resurrect the name for the Victorian population, on grounds of the large distance (700 km) between forms, and some distinguishing characteristics. A final synonym, Banksia ledifolia, dates from 1856, when Meissner inexplicably listed the name as a synonym (authored by Cunningham and in manuscript form in the Herbarium) in his chapter on the Proteaceae for A. P. de Candolle's Prodromus.
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