Petrophile carduacea

Petrophile carduacea is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a shrub with deeply toothed leaves, and more or less spherical heads of hairy yellow flowers.

Description

Petrophile carduacea is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hairy young branchlets. The leaves are long, wide and deeply toothed, the teeth broadly triangular and sharply-pointed. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils in more or less spherical heads about in diameter, with a few triangular involucral bracts at the base. The flowers are about long, yellow and hairy. Flowering occurs from September to October and the fruit is a nut, fused with others in an oblong head long on a peduncle up to long.

Taxonomy

Petrophile carduacea was first formally described in 1856 by Carl Meissner in de Candolle's Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis from material collected by James Drummond. The specific epithet means "thistle-like".

Distribution and habitat

This petrophile grows in scrub and heath in and near the Stirling Range in the Esperance Plains and Jarrah Forest biogeographic regions of southwestern Western Australia.

Conservation status

Petrophile carduacea is classified as "Priority Two" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife meaning that it is poorly known and from only one or a few locations.