Conospermum wycherleyi
Conospermum wycherleyi is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is an erect shrub with spoon-shaped to lance-shaped leaves with the narrower end towards the base, spike-like panicles of woolly, white, tube-shaped flowers and nuts with cream-coloured to orange hairs.
Description
Conospermum wycherleyi is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of. Its leaves are spoon-shaped to lance-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, long, wide and arranged at the base of the flowers. The flowers are borne in spike-like panicles on a silky, velvety hairy peduncle long with dark brown bracteoles long, wide and densely hairy. The flowers are white and woolly, forming a tube long, the upper lip egg-shaped, long and wide, the lower lip with narrowly oblong lobes long and wide and covered with shaggy, silky hairs. Flowering time depends on subspecies, and the fruit is a hairy nut about long and wide with cream-coloured hairs, woolly hairs.Taxonomy
Conospermum wycherleyi was first formally described in 1995 by Eleanor Marion Bennett in the Flora of Australia from specimens collected by Charles Gardner near Eneabba Creek in 1948. The specific epithet honours Paul Wycherley, the director of Kings Park and Botanical Garden from 1971 to 1992.In the same edition of Flora of Australia, Bennett described C. wycherleyi subsp.glabrum, and its name, and the name of the autonym are accepted by the Australian Plant Census:Conospermum wycherleyi subsp. glabrum E.M.Benn. has the upper lip of the flowers long, the lower lip joined for and flowers from July to October.Conospermum wycherleyi E.M.Benn. subsp. wycherleyi, has the upper lip of the flowers about long, the lower lip joined for and flowers in September.
Distribution and habitat
This species of Conospermum grows in sandy soils and laterite on sandplains near Badgingarra and Eneabba and north to Walkaway in the Geraldton Sandplains and Jarrah Forest bioregions of south-western Western Australia.Subspecies glabrum occurs between Lake Logue and Walkaway, and subsp. wycherleyi grows near Eneabba.