Banksia formosa

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:                Showy Banksia

Conservation status:  ...

Etymology:   

• The genus is named after Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820 ), who, in 1770, was the first European to collect specimens of these plants  

• The specific epithet (formosa) is a Latin word meaning "beautiful on account of form"

Flowers:                  

• The flowers are borne on a head containing between 100 and 220 flowers in each head

• There are oblong to egg-shaped involucral bracts 16–20 mm long at the base of the head

• The flowers have a golden orange perianth 25–39 mm (0.98–1.54 in) long and a yellow pistil 29–55 mm long

• Flowering occurs in May or from September to December and the fruit is a glabrous follicle 11–13 mm long

Fruit:                         

• Each head may have up to thirteen follicles

Leaves:         

• Broadly linear in outline, pinnatipartite, 70–160 mm long and 6–11 mm wide on a petiole 2–3 mm long

• There are between thirty and forty-five more or less triangular lobes on each side of the leaves

Stem & branches: 

• It has hairy branchlets 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• Banksia formosa is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of 1–3 m but does not form a lignotuber 

Habitat:   

• Kwongan and open forest 

Distribution:                  

• Between Busselton and Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve 

• It is common near Albany and in the Stirling Range

Additional notes:     

• Overview

  • Banksia formosa, commonly known as Showy dryandra, is a species of shrub that is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It has pinnatipartite leaves with up to forty triangular lobes on each side, up to more than two hundred, conspicuous golden orange flowers and up to sixteen egg-shaped follicles in each head

• Taxonomy and naming

  • This species was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Dryandra formosa and published the description in the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London

  • In 2007, Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele transferred all the dryandras to the genus Banksia and this species became Banksia formosa

• Ecology

  • An assessment of the potential impact of climate change on this species found that its range is likely to contract by between 50% and 80% by 2080, depending on the severity of the change

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksia_formosa (2023)