Grevillea acuaria

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         Needle-leaf Grevillea

Conservation status: Least concern

• Listed as "Least Concern" on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

• It is a widespread, common species with a stable population and no known threats, either current or in the near future

Etymology:   

• The genus was named in honour of Charles Francis Greville, an 18th-century patron of botany and co-founder of the Royal Horticultural Society

• The specific epithet (acuaria) means "possessing needles"

Flowers:                  

• The flowers are usually arranged in groups of four to six on the ends of branches or in leaf axils on a flowering stem 

• They are less than 1 mm long, and are scarlet to deep burgundy, the style green or red, often with a green tip

• Each flower is on a pedicel 4–5 mm long, and the pistil is 14–21 mm long

• Flowering mainly occurs from May to October 

Fruit:                         

• The fruit is an oval follicle 8–11 mm long

Leaves:         

• Linear to cylindrical, 5–30 mm long and 0.5–3.5 mm wide 

• The edges are turned down or rolled under

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• A rounded, bushy to erect shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.2–1.5 m 

Habitat:   

• A wide variety of habitats, often in winter-wet situations

Distribution:                  

• It is widespread in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains, Great Victoria Desert, Mallee, Murchison, Nullarbor and Yalgoo biogeographic regions of Western Australia

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • Grevillea acuaria was first formally described in 1870 by George Bentham from an unpublished manuscript by Ferdinand von Mueller and the description was published in Flora Australiensis from material collected by James Drummond

Sources of information:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grevillea_acuaria (July 2024)

• https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://id.biodiversity.org.au/taxon/apni/51250133 (July 2024)