Banksia micrantha
Banksia micrantha is a species of small shrub that is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a spreading bush with sharply-pointed linear leaves, pale yellow flower spikes and up to twenty-five follicles surrounded by the remains of the flowers. It was first formally described by Alex George in 1981.
Description
Banksia micrantha grows as a spreading, bushy shrub up to high and wide and forms a lignotuber. Its branches are often horizontal and underground at first. It has hairy stems and sharply-pointed, linear leaves long and wide on a petiole long. The edges of the leaves are tightly rolled under. The flowers are pale yellow and arranged in a spike long with hairy involucral bracts long at the base of the head. The perianth is long and the pistil hooked and long. Up to twenty-five egg-shaped to elliptic follicles long high and wide form in each head, surrounded by the remains of the flowers.Taxonomy
Banksia micrantha had been recorded since 1938, but considered part of a broad B. sphaerocarpa complex, until officially described in 1981 by Alex George in his monograph The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae). The specific epithet is from ancient Greek words meaning "small" and "flower".George placed B. micrantha in Banksia subgenus Banksia because of its characteristic Banksia flower spike, section Oncostylis because its flowers have hooked styles, and series Abietinae because of its roughly spherical flower spike. Its closest relative is said to B. sphaerocarpa.
A 1996 cladistic analysis of Banksia by Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges confirmed B. micrantha