Conospermum polycephalum
Conospermum polycephalum is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a spindly or semi-prostrate shrub with dense, thread-like leaves at the base of the plant, and panicles of white, pink or blue, tube-shaped flowers, the fruit a hairy, cream-coloured nut.
Description
Conospermum polycephalum is a spindly or semi-prostrate shrub that typically grows to a height of, sometimes to. It has dense, thread-like leaves, long and wide at the base of the stem. The flowers are arranged in panicles on a peduncle long, with bluish-green egg-shaped bracteoles long and wide on the peduncle. The flowers are white, pink or blue, and form a tube long. The upper lip is elliptic to egg-shaped, long and wide and the lower lip linear to elliptic, long and wide. Flowering occurs from July to September, and the fruit is a cream-coloured nut with rust-coloured hairs, long and wide.
Taxonomy
Conospermum polycephalum was first formally described in 1848 by Carl Meissner in Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae from specimens collected near the Swan River by James Drummond. The specific epithet means 'many-headed'.
Distribution and habitat
This species of Conospermum is found from north of Perth to Wubin in the Avon Wheatbelt, Geraldton Sandplains, Jarrah Forest and Swan Coastal Plain bioregions of south-western Western Australia, where it grows in gravelly soil.