Banksia spinulosa var. neoanglica
| New England Banksia | |
|---|---|
_-_PhytoKeys-014-057-g005.jpeg) |
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| New England Banksia neotype | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| Order: | Proteales |
| Family: | Proteaceae |
| Genus: | Banksia |
| Species: | B. neoanglica |
| Binomial name | |
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Banksia neoanglica (A.S.George) Stimpson & J.J.Bruhl |
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Banksia neoanglica, commonly known as New England banksia is a shrub or small tree with leaves that are greenish on the upper surface, whitish with soft hairs on the lower side and spikes of flowers with styles that turn black as they open. It is similar to Banksia spinulosa and was formerly known as Banksia spinulosa var. neoanglica, but differs in that its leaves are wider and have margins that are not tightly turned under. It is found mainly along the eastern edge of the Great Dividing Range.
Banksia neoanglica is sometimes a multi-stemmed shrub with an underground lignotuber and growing to a height of 2.5 m (8 ft), otherwise a tree to 7 m (20 ft). The adult leaves have a petiole about 2–4 mm (0.08–0.2 in) long and a linear leaf blade 43–75 mm (2–3 in) long and 3–5 mm (0.1–0.2 in) wide. Immature leaves are wider but shorter and have teeth along their edges. The upper surface of the leaves is but the lower side is covered with a layer of greyish-white felted hairs. The mature flower spike is 84–119 mm (3–5 in) long and 70–85 mm (3–3 in) wide with 12 to 14 pairs of flowers around the circumference. When mature, the flowers are yellowish-orange but the style, which has a hooked end, changes colour from red to black at anthesis. The group of fruit (infructescence) that develops from the fertilised flowers is 85–120 mm (3–5 in) long and 35–45 mm (1–2 in) in diameter. Flowering mostly occurs from April to June.
This species is similar to hairpin banksia (B. spinulosa) but differs in having leaves with flat edges. It also resembles Banksia cunninghamii (also known as B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii) but has a shorter, wider infructescence and a lignotuber, absent from B. cunninghamii.
During collection for The Banksia Atlas project prior to 1988, volunteer collectors reported populations of B. spinulosa in northern New South Wales that were indistinguishable from B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii by their leaves, flowers and fruit, but unlike that variety it had a lignotuber. In 1988, Alex George formally described B. spinulosa var. neoanglica and published the description in Nuytsia from a specimen collected on 6 April 1986 by Stephen Clemesha on the Ebor-Armidale Road, about a kilometre north of the turnoff to New England National Park. (Apparently no specimens were distributed to herbaria, so that a neotype was collected in 2012.) The specific epithet neoanglica is derived from the Ancient Greek word neos meaning "new" and the Latin Anglicus meaning "English", in reference to the fact that its centre of distribution is in the New England Tableland. At the time of publication, B. spinulosa comprised four varieties - spinulosa, neoanglica, collina and cunninghamii. (The last two varieties had previously been known as Banksia species.) Under George's arrangement of Banksia, B. spinulosa was placed in subgenus Banksia, section Oncostylis, series Spicigerae because its inflorescences are cylindrical.
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