Banksia cirsioides

Banksia cirsioides is a species of shrub that is endemic to Western Australia. It has pinnatisect 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. 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 up to long. The flowers are yellow with a pink base, the perianth long and the pistil is pale yellow and long. Flowering occurs from May to August and the fruit is a more or less glabrous follicle long.

Taxonomy and naming

This species was first formally described in 1856 by Carl Meissner 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 is a reference to a perceived similarity to plants in the genus Cirsium. 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, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains and Mallee biogeographic regions