''Banksia'' subg. ''Spathulatae'' is a valid botanic name for a

subgenus In biology, a subgenus (plural: subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus. In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed betw ...

of ''

Banksia ''Banksia'' is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes, and fruiting "cones" and heads. ''Banksias'' rang ...

''. It was published in 2007 by

Austin Mast Austin R. Mast is a research botanist. Born in 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000. He is currently a professor within the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University (FSU), and has been di ...

and

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 defined as containing all those ''Banksia'' species having spathulate (spoon-shaped)

cotyledon A cotyledon (; ; ; , gen. (), ) is a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant, and is defined as "the embryonic leaf in seed-bearing plants, one or more of which are the first to appear from a germinating seed." The num ...

s. The name was published to accommodate forthcoming changes to the taxonomic arrangement of ''Banksia'', based on the

DNA sequence DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine. Th ...

analyses of

and others, which suggested a

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spe ...

for ''Banksia'' very greatly different from the accepted taxonomic arrangement. They found ''Banksia'' to be

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

with respect to ''Dryandra'', and that these two genera were best split into two clades, one with beaked follicles and non-spathulate cotyledons, the other with unbeaked follicles and spathulate cotyledons. Initially this clade was informally named "/Cryptostomata", in reference to the

stoma In botany, a stoma (from Greek ''στόμα'', "mouth", plural "stomata"), also called a stomate (plural "stomates"), is a pore found in the epidermis of leaves, stems, and other organs, that controls the rate of gas exchange. The pore is bo ...

tes, which are sunken with constricted entrances. Accordingly, in 2007 Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement by transferring ''Dryandra'' to ''Banksia'', and publishing ''B.'' subg. ''Spathulatae'' for the species having spathulate cotyledons. The type species of ''Spathulatae'' was given as '' B. integrifolia'' (coast banksia), but no further details have been given. Mast and Thiele have foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of ''Dryandra'' is complete.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banksia Subg. Spathulatae subg. Spathulatae Plant subgenera

See also

References