''Banksia cirsioides'' is a species of shrub that is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. It has

pinnatisect The following terms are used to describe leaf morphology in the description and taxonomy of plants. Leaves may be simple (that is, the leaf blade or 'lamina' is undivided) or compound (that is, the leaf blade is divided into two or more leaflets ...

leaves with between six and ten lobes on each side and hairy heads of yellow and pink flowers.

Description

''Banksia cirsiodes'' is a rounded or column-like shrub that typically grows to a height of but does not form a

lignotuber A lignotuber is a woody swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem, such as by fire. Other woody plants may develop basal burls as a similar survival strategy, often as a respons ...

. It has hairy, pinnatisect leaves that are long and wide on a petiole long. Each side of the leaves has between six and ten linear to lance-shaped, sharply pointed lobes on each side. The flowers are arranged in a head of between 100 and 120, surrounded at the base by hairy, linear to lance-shaped

involucral bracts In botany, a bract is a modified or specialized leaf, associated with a reproductive structure such as a flower, inflorescence axis or cone scale. Bracts are usually different from foliage leaves in size, color, shape or texture. They also look ...

up to long. The flowers are yellow with a pink base, the

perianth The perianth (perigonium, perigon or perigone in monocots) is the non-reproductive part of the flower. It is a structure that forms an envelope surrounding the sexual organs, consisting of the calyx (sepals) and the corolla (petals) or tepal ...

long and the

pistil Gynoecium (; ; : gynoecia) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl (botany), whorl of a flower; it consists ...

is pale yellow and long. Flowering occurs from May to August and the fruit is a more or less

glabrous Glabrousness () is the technical term for a lack of hair, down, setae, trichomes, or other such covering. A glabrous surface may be a natural characteristic of all or part of a plant or animal, or be due to loss because of a physical condition, ...

follicle long.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1856 by

Carl Meissner Carl Daniel Friedrich Meissner (1 November 1800 – 2 May 1874) was a Swiss botanist. Biography Born in Bern, Switzerland on 1 November 1800, he was christened Meisner but later changed the spelling of his name to Meissner. For most of his 40 ...

who gave it the name ''Dryandra cirsioides'' and published the description in de Candolle's '' Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis'' from specimens collected by James Drummond. The

specific epithet In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin gramm ...

(''carlinoides'') is a reference to a perceived similarity to plants in the genus ''

Cirsium ''Cirsium'' is a genus of Perennial plant, perennial and Biennial plant, biennial flowering plants in the Asteraceae, one of several genera known commonly as thistles. They are more precisely known as plume thistles. These differ from other thist ...

''. In 2007 Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele transferred all dryandras to the genus ''Banksia''.

Distribution and habitat

''Banksia cirsioides'' grows in kwongan between the Stirling Range and Munglinup in the

Avon Wheatbelt The Avon Wheatbelt is a bioregion in Western Australia. It has an area of . It is considered part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion. Geography The Avon Wheatbelt bioregion is mostly a gently undulating landscape with low rel ...

, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains and Mallee biogeographic regions

Description

Taxonomy and naming

Distribution and habitat

References

Further reading