Adenanthos Sericeus - Description

Description

A single leaf, showing the tri-segmentation into laciniae Flowers, before (left) and after (right) anthesis

A, A. sericeus mostly grows as an upright, spreading shrub but occasionally takes the habit of a small tree up to 5 m (16 ft) tall. It has erect branches that are covered in short hairs when young, but these are lost with age. Leaves may be up to 40 mm (1.6 in) long, and repeatedly divide by threes into from 5 to 50 narrow laciniae, circular in cross-section, with a diameter of less than 0.5 mm (0.02 in).

Flowers are red, and occur alone or in small groups, hidden within the foliage at the end of branches. As with most other Proteaceae, each flower is composed of a tubular perianth of four united tepals, ending in a structure called a limb; and a single pistil, the stigma of which is initially trapped inside the limb, but is released at anthesis. In A. sericeus, the perianth is bright red, about 28 mm (1.1 in) long, hairy on the outside but smooth and hairless inside. The style is about 40 mm (1.6 in) long; being much longer than the perianth, it is very sharply bent for as long as the stigma remains trapped within the limb, and then springs erect. The fruit is an oval-shaped achene about 5 mm (0.2 in) long.

Read more about this topic:  Adenanthos Sericeus

Famous quotes containing the word description:

    Once a child has demonstrated his capacity for independent functioning in any area, his lapses into dependent behavior, even though temporary, make the mother feel that she is being taken advantage of....What only yesterday was a description of the child’s stage in life has become an indictment, a judgment.
    Elaine Heffner (20th century)

    God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.
    Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)