Banksia heliantha, commonly known as oak-leaved dryandra,[2] is a species of shrub that is endemic to Western Australia. It has hairy stems, serrated, egg-shaped to wedge-shaped leaves, golden yellow flowers and partly woolly follicles.
Description
Banksia heliantha is a robust, openly-branched shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.6–3 m (2 ft 0 in – 9 ft 10 in) and has hairy stems but does not form a lignotuber. The leaves are wedge-shaped to egg-shaped with the narrower end towards the base, 50–90 mm (2.0–3.5 in) long and 22–50 mm (0.87–1.97 in) wide on a petiole up to 10 mm (0.39 in) long. The leaves have between five and fifteen sharply-pointed teeth up to 6 mm (0.24 in) long on each side. The flowers are borne in groups of between 140 and 160 in a head on the ends of branches with hairy, tapering linear involucral bracts up to 50 mm (2.0 in) long at the base of the head. The flowers have a golden yellow perianth is 35–41 mm (1.4–1.6 in) long that is hairy at its base and a yellow pistil 41–52 mm (1.6–2.0 in) long and glabrous. Flowering occurs in March or from July to October and the follicles are egg-shaped, 15–20 mm (0.59–0.79 in) long and woolly in the upper half. Up to fifteen follicle form in each head.[2][3]
In 2007, Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele transferred all the Dryandra species to Banksia but there was already a different species known as Banksia quercifolia, so the name of this dryandra was changed to Banksia heliantha.[7][8] The epithet (heliantha) is from ancient Greek, meaning "sun-flowered".[6]: 215
^ abGeorge, Alex S. (1999). Flora of Australia(PDF). Vol. 17B. Canberra: Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. pp. 292–293. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
Cavanagh, Tony; Pieroni, Margaret (2006). The Dryandras. Melbourne: Australian Plants Society (SGAP Victoria); Perth: Wildflower Society of Western Australia. ISBN1-876473-54-1.