''Banksia conferta'', commonly known as the glasshouse banksia, 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 ...

to eastern Australia. It has rough bark on the trunk, elliptic to egg-shaped leaves arranged in

whorl A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). In nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral diagra ...

s, and crowded yellow flowers in a cylindrical spike later forming a relatively large number of follicles.

Description

''Banksia conferta'' is a 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 rough, grey, tessellated bark on the trunk and orange, red or brown stems that are hairy at first. The leaves are

arranged In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestratio ...

in whorls and are elliptic to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long and wide with the edges curved downwards and sometimes serrated. The flowers are crowded in a cylindrical spike long with

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 ...

long at the base. The flowers are yellowish green to pinkish brown in the bud stage, turning golden yellow when open. 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 ...

is 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 long and slightly curved. Flowering occurs from late April to July and the fruit is a narrow elliptical follicle long, high and wide. More than 100 follicles often form in each spike, surrounded by the remains of the flowers. The follicles remain until the plant is burned, unlike those of the similar '' B. integrifolia'' which also has less crowded flowers.

Taxonomy and naming

''Banksia conferta'' was first collected by

Lawrie Johnson Lawrence Alexander Sidney Johnson (26 June 1925 – 1 August 1997) known as Lawrie Johnson, was an Australian taxonomic botanist. He worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, for the whole of his professional career, as a botanist (1948–1 ...

from the

McPherson Range The McPherson Range is an extensive mountain range, a spur of the Great Dividing Range, heading in an easterly direction from near Wallangarra, Queensland, Wallangarra to the Pacific Ocean coastline. It forms part of the Scenic Rim on the border ...

in Lamington National Park in May 1951, but not formally described until 1981. In that year, Alex George named it in the journal ''

Nuytsia ''Nuytsia floribunda'' is a hemiparasitic tree found in Western Australia. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the ...

'' from specimens he collected from

Mount Tibrogargan Mount Tibrogargan is a small mountain in the Glass House Mountains National Park, north-northwest of Brisbane, Australia. It is a magma intrusion of hard alkali rhyolite that squeezed up into the vents of an ancient volcano 27 million years ago ...

in the

Glass House Mountains National Park Glass House Mountains National Park is a heritage-listed national park at Glass House Mountains, Queensland, Glass House Mountains, Sunshine Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Beerburrum Forest Reserve 1. It is north of B ...

in 1975. 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 ...

(''conferta'') is a Latin word meaning "crowded". He felt it had evolved from ''Banksia integrifolia'' but was distinct enough to warrant species status. In the same journal, George described variety ''conferta'' and var. ''penicillata'', and in 1996 he described subspecies ''conferta'' and subsp. ''penicillata''. He described subsp. ''conferta'' as being found in southern Queensland on the

Lamington Plateau The Lamington National Park is a national park in the McPherson Range on the Queensland/New South Wales border in Australia. From Southport on the Gold Coast the park is to the southwest and Brisbane is north. The Lamington National Park is k ...

and the Glass House Mountains and subsp. ''penicillata'' from

Bowral Bowral () is the largest town in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. It is south-west of Sydney and north-east of Canberra. It is the main business and entertainment precinct of the Wingecarribee Shire and the Southern Highl ...

to north of Lithgow in

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

. In 1996,

Kevin Thiele Kevin R. Thiele is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Western Australia and the director of Taxonomy Australia. He was the curator of the Western Australian Herbarium from 2006 to 2015. His research interests include ...

and

Pauline Ladiges Pauline Yvonne Ladiges (born 1948) is a botanist whose contributions have been significant both in building the field of taxonomy, ecology and historical biogeography of Australian plants, particularly Eucalypts and flora, and in science educat ...

raised subspecies ''penicillata'' to species status as ''B. penicillata'' in ''

Australian Systematic Botany ''Australian Systematic Botany'' is an international peer-reviewed scientific journal published by CSIRO Publishing. It is devoted to publishing original research, and sometimes review articles, on topics related to systematic botany, such as b ...

'', based on the differences in habit, bark, leaf shape, indumentum and flower colour, and the fact that the two taxa were so far from each other. According to their morphological cladistic analysis, ''B. penicillata'' was sister taxon to ''B. paludosa''. Hence var. ''conferta'' and subsp. ''conferta'' became

synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''B. conferta''.

Distribution and habitat

This banksia is known from the

and the

Glass House Mountains The Glass House Mountains are a cluster of thirteen hills that rise abruptly from the coastal plain on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. The highest hill is Mount Beerwah at 556 metres above sea level, but t ...

in southern Queensland where it grows on steep rocky slopes in scrub and open shrubland and in the

Coorabakh National Park Coorabakh is a national park located near Hannam Vale in New South Wales, Australia, northeast of Sydney. Three volcanic outcrops known as ''Big Nellie'' (), ''Flat Nellie'' () and ''Little Nellie'' () dominate the park. The park is covered i ...

in New South Wales. Subspecies ''conferta'' is restricted to the Coorabakh National Park and is listed as "critically endangered" under the '' Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016''. Botanist Stephen Bell investigated the Coorabakh population and noted low rates of follicle formation, postulating that a lack of mammalian pollinators may be impacting on the pollination of the species there.

References

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q593064 conferta Flora of Queensland Flora of New South Wales Plants described in 1981