Banksia lanata

Location & distribution maps

Plant  information

Common name:                Coomallo Banksia

Conservation status:  Not threatened

• It is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife

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 (lanata) is a Latin word meaning "woolly", referring to the hairs on the bracts

Flowers:                  

• The flowers are arranged in a head 30–50 mm long with woolly-hairy, whitish involucral bracts at the base

• The flowers are pale cream-coloured, sometimes pale brown with a purple style and have a hairy perianth 32–38 mm long and hooked pistil 38–48 mm long

• Flowering occurs from October to December or January and the follicles are elliptical, 12–30 mm long, 4–11 mm high and 6–12 mm wide

Fruit:                         

• Up to fifty follicles form in each head and remain closed until the plant is killed by fire

Leaves:         

• It has crowded, linear leaves that are 30–100 mm long, about 1 mm wide on a petiole 3–4 mm long and hairy when young

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A spreading shrub that typically grows to a height of 1 m with hairy stems but that does not form a lignotuber

Habitat:   

Distribution:                  

• Endemic to a restricted area of Western Australia

• It is restricted to an area between Arrowsmith Lake, Coomallo Creek and Tathra National Park in the Geraldton Sandplains biogeographic region where it is relatively common

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy 

  • Banksia lanata was first formally described in 1981 by Alex George in the journal Nuytsia from specimens he collected east of Eneabba in 1971

Sources of information:

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