Grevillea petrophiloides

Location & distribution maps

Common name:         Pink Pokers

Conservation status: Subspecies remota is poorly known

• Subspecies magnifica and petrophiloides are listed as "not threatened" 

• But subspecies remota is classified as "Priority Three" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, meaning that it is poorly known and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat

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 (petrophiloides) means "Petrophile-like" (ie Conebush-like)

Flowers:                  

• The flowers are arranged in clusters on the ends of sometimes branched canes held above the foliage, the clusters cylindrical on a rachis 60–200 mm long

• The flowers are usually pink to reddish pink and bluish-grey, varying with subspecies, the pistil 14–21.5 mm long

• Flowering time varies with subspecies

Fruit:                         

• An oval to more or less spherical follicle 7–18 mm long

Leaves:         

• 60–250 mm long and divided, with three to nine lobes that are sometimes divided again, resulting in more than ten end lobes that are linear, 10–130 mm long and 0.5–3.5 mm wide

Stem & branches: 

Roots:         

Habit:        

• An erect shrub that typically grows to a height of 1–4 m 

Habitat and distribution:                  

• Subspecies magnifica grows on or near granite outcrops mainly between Tammin and Pantapin in the Avon Wheatbelt and Mallee bioregions

• Subspecies petrophiloides in shrubland or heath on sandplains between the lower Murchison River, Quairading and Hyden in the Avon Wheatbelt, Geraldton Sandplains and Mallee bioregions

• Subspecies remota grows on or near granite outcrops from near Varley to Norseman in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie and Mallee bioregions of south-western Western Australia

Additional notes:     

• Taxonomy

  • Grevillea petrophiloides was first formally described in 1848 by Carl Meissner in Johann Georg Christian Lehmann's Plantae Preissianae based on plant material collected by James Drummond in the Swan River Colony

  • In 1986, Donald McGillivray described three subspecies of G. petrophiloides in his book New Names in Grevillea (Proteaceae), two of which have been accepted by the Australian Plant Census, and in 2000, Robert Owen Makinson changed to name of Grevillea magnifica subsp. remota Olde & Marriott to G. petrophiloides subsp. remota in the Flora of Australia:

    • Grevillea petrophiloides subsp. magnifica has more than ten linear end leaf-lobes that are circular or triangular in cross-section, 30–120 mm long and 0.5–1.0 mm wide, mainly flowers from June to August, and has flowers with a straw-white or very pale pink style

    • Grevillea petrophiloides Meisn. subsp. petrophiloides has more than ten lance-shaped or oblong leaf-lobes that are flat, circular or triangular in cross-section, 20–60 mm long and 0.5–2 mm wide, flowers in most months with a peak in August and September, and has flowers with a pink or red style

    • Grevillea petrophiloides subsp. remota has fewer than ten linear end leaf-lobes that are circular or triangular in cross-section, 30–120 mm long and 0.5–1.0 mm wide, mainly flowers from June to October, and has flowers with a straw-white or very pale pink style

Sources of information:

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