''Banksia tricuspis'', commonly known as Lesueur banksia or pine banksia, is a plant in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Proteaceae The Proteaceae form a family (biology), family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genus, genera with about 1,660 known species. Australia and South Africa have the greatest concentr ...

and 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 a small area in the

south-west The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A ''compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each ...

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 is a stunted tree or shrub with narrow leaves and cylindrical spikes of golden-coloured flowers and it occurs in a geographic range of just 15 square kilometres near Jurien.

Description

''Banksia tricuspis'' is a shrub or small tree, often with an irregular shape, which grows to a height of with thick, grey, wrinkled, fire-resistant bark on its

trunk Trunk may refer to: Biology * Trunk (anatomy), synonym for torso * Trunk (botany), a tree's central superstructure, and the stem of woody plants * Trunk of corpus callosum, in neuroanatomy * Elephant trunk, the proboscis of an elephant Comput ...

. New growth is produced in spring and is pale greenish-brown. The leaves are mostly crowded near the ends of the branches, linear in shape, long wide with the edges rolled under and end in three pointed teeth. The upper surface of the leaves is covered with soft hairs at first but becomes

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, ...

as the leaves mature. The lower surface is woolly. As with many other members of the

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

inflorescence In botany, an inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a plant's Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a mai ...

s or flower spikes may contain hundreds or thousands of individual flowers, each of which consists of a tube-shaped

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 ...

made up of four joined

tepal A tepal is one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth). The term is used when these parts cannot easily be classified as either sepals or petals. This may be because the parts of the perianth are undifferentiated (i.e. of very ...

s, and one long wiry

style Style, or styles may refer to: Film and television * ''Style'' (2001 film), a Hindi film starring Sharman Joshi, Riya Sen, Sahil Khan and Shilpi Mudgal * ''Style'' (2002 film), a Tamil drama film * ''Style'' (2004 film), a Burmese film * '' ...

. In this species the spike is on the end of a branch and is long and wide when the flowers open. Each perianth is golden-yellow, long, hairy on the outside but glabrous inside. Flowering occurs from late March to July. Only up to 35 of the flowers on a spike will form seeds and these are contained in large, woody fruit called follicles. In ''B. tricuspis'', these protrude from the spike and are elliptic in shape, high and wide, glabrous and slightly rough. The fruit remain closed until the plant is heated during a fire, after which one or two winged seeds are released from each follicle.

Taxonomy and naming

''Banksia tricuspis'' was first formally described 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 ...

in 1855 from specimens collected by James Drummond and the description was published in ''

Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany ''Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany'' was a scientific journal edited by Sir William Jackson Hooker, William Hooker that was published in nine volumes between 1849 and 1857. External links ''Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew ...

''. 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 ...

(''tricuspis'') is a

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

word meaning "having three points", referring to the three teeth on the leaf tips. This species is placed alone in series ''Banksia'' ser. ''Tricuspidae''.

Distribution and habitat

This banksia only occurs around

Mount Lesueur Mount Lesueur is a near-circular, flat-topped mesa located from Jurien Bay in 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 t ...

Lesueur National Park Lesueur National Park is a national park straddling the boundary between the Wheatbelt and Mid West regions of Western Australia, 211 km north of Perth. The park was gazetted in 1992. It includes two mesas known as Mount Lesueur and Moun ...

in the

Geraldton Sandplains Geraldton Sandplains is an Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia, interim Australian bioregion of Western Australia. It has an area of . The Geraldton Sandplains is part of the larger Southwest Australia savanna ecoregion, as asses ...

biogeographic region An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and con ...

. It grows in rocky

lateritic Laterite is a soil type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by intensive and prolo ...

soil in shrubland.

Ecology

This plant is fire tolerant and new growth sprouts from epicormic buds after fire. There is evidence that black cockatoos (

Calyptorhynchus Described by French naturalist Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest in 1826, the genus ''Calyptorhynchus'' has two species of cockatoos. They are all mostly black in colour, and the taxa may be differentiated partly by size and partly by small areas of red, ...

) increase the rate of seed set by selectively destroying borers.

Conservation

''Banksia tricuspis'' is classified as " Priority Four" by the Government of Western Australia

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and en ...

, meaning that it is rare or near threatened. It is only known from an area of .

Use in horticulture

This is a slow-growing plant and may take 10 years to flower for the first time. The foliage is sparse except for at the branch tips and the flower spikes and old fruit are attractive. It grows best in sandy or rocky soil in a sunny location. Seeds do not require any treatment, and take 18 to 57 days to

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an flowering plant, angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the sp ...

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q4856751 tricuspis Endemic flora of Western Australia Eudicots of Western Australia Rosids of Western Australia Plants described in 1855 Taxa named by Carl Meissner