Description
Banksia menziesii grows either as a gnarled tree to 10 m (35 ft), or a lower spreading 1–3 metre (4–10 ft) shrub, generally encountered at its northern limits in the vicinity of Eneabba-Mount Adams; thus, it declines steadily in size as the climate becomes warmer and dryer further north. In the shrub form, several stems arise from the woody base known as the lignotuber. The trunk is greyish, sometimes with shades of brown or pink, and the 2–3 cm (1 in) thick rough bark breaks away easily. The new growth is covered in fine brownish hair, which wears away after two or three years, leaving smooth stems and leaves. Stems which will bear flower spikes the following year are generally thicker and longer. Oblong in shape and somewhat truncate at the tips, the leaves are grey-green in colour, 8–25 cm (3–10 in) long and up to 4 cm (1.6 in) wide. The new leaves are paler and finely downy. The leaf margins are serrated with many small 1–2 mm long triangular teeth. The lower surface of the leaf has a midrib covered in fine pale brown hair.
Flowering occurs in autumn and winter, peaking from May to July. Overall the inflorescences, or flower spikes, take around eight months to development from the first microscopic changes in late spring. Ovoid to cylindrical in shape, the flower spikes can be up to 7–8 cm (2.6–3.4 in) wide and 4–12 cm (1.6–4.8 in) high. They are composed of numerous individual flowers; one field study south of Perth recorded an average of 1043 per flower spike, while another on plants in cultivation in South Australia recorded an average of 720. B. menziesii has more flower colour variants than any other Banksia species, with flower spikes occurring in a wide range of pinks, as well as chocolate, bronze, yellow and white, and greenish variants. They are particularly striking closeup but can look indistinct from a distance. They are most attractive in late bud, the styles contrasting well to the body of the inflorescence, the whole looking like a red- or pink-and white vertical candy striped bloom. The inflorescences are generally a deeper red after colder weather and further into the winter. Anthocyanin pigments are responsible for the red and pink shades in the flowers.
Old flowers usually fall off the spikes quickly, with up to 25 large beaked follicles developing. A mottled dark brown and grey in colour, these can be prominent and quite attractively patterned when newly developed. Oval shaped, they are 2.5–3.5 cm (1–1.4 in) long by 1–1.5 cm (0.4–0.6 in) high and 1–1.5 cm (0.4–0.6 in) wide. Overall, only a small fraction of flowers develop into follicles; the proportion is as low as one in a thousand. The plant is dependent on fire to reproduce as the follicles only open after being burnt, each one producing one or two viable wedge-shaped (cuneate) seeds, on either side of a woody separator. The colour and level of pigmentation in the seeds foreshadows the eventual colour of the inflorescences. Kevin Collins of the Banksia Farm recalled that for many years pale seeds were discarded by seed collectors who thought they were infertile. Later, he learnt that pale seeds yielded yellow-coloured blooms, dark grey the usual red-coloured, and black a distinctive bronze-coloured bloom.
Seedlings have obovate cotyledons 1–1.4 cm (0.4–0.6 in) long by 1–1.5 cm (0.4–0.6 in) wide, and the leaves which develop immediately afterward are crowded and very hairy. They have serrate margins. Evidence of thickening to form a future lignotuber, as well as minute buds, has been detected from the bases of seedlings at five months of age.
Read more about this topic: Banksia Menziesii
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“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)
“Everything to which we concede existence is a posit from the standpoint of a description of the theory-building process, and simultaneously real from the standpoint of the theory that is being built. Nor let us look down on the standpoint of the theory as make-believe; for we can never do better than occupy the standpoint of some theory or other, the best we can muster at the time.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)