Beadle's grevillea

Description

Grevillea beadleana, commonly known as Beadle's grevillea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to New South Wales. It is a shrub with dissected leaves and grey to purplish flowers with a burgundy to scarlet style. Grevillea beadleana is a shrub that typically grows to a height of 0.8–2.5 m (2 ft 7 in – 8 ft 2 in). Its leaves are mostly pinnatipartite, 80–165 mm (3.1–6.5 in) long and 50–105 mm (2.0–4.1 in) wide in outline, the ultimate lobes triangular and 20–110 mm (0.79–4.33 in) wide at the base. The lower surface of the leaves is densely covered with curled hairs. The flowers are arranged in one-sided racemes in groups of twenty to ninety on the ends of branches, the rachis 35–50 mm (1.4–2.0 in) long. The flowers are grey to purplish with a burgundy to scarlet style, the pistil 15–18.5 mm (0.59–0.73 in) long. There are prominent bracts 5.7–6.2 mm (0.22–0.24 in) long at the base of the flowers, but that are lost as the flowers open. Flowering mainly occurs in late spring and summer and the fruit is a woolly-hairy follicle 9.0–10.5 mm (0.35–0.41 in) long. Grevillea beadleana was first formally described in 1986 by Donald McGillivray in his book New Names in Grevillea (Proteaceae), based on specimens collected in 1982 by J.B. Williams near Chaelundi Falls in Guy Fawkes River National Park. The specific epithet (beadleana) honours Noel Beadle. Grevillea beadleana is listed as "endangered" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the New South Wales Government Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. The main threats to the species include inappropriate fire regimes, grazing by native animals and by livestock, and illegal collection. Plants in the genus Grevillea are shrubs, rarely small trees with simple or compound leaves arranged alternately along the branchlets. The flowers are zygomorphic and typically arranged in pairs along a sometimes branched raceme at the ends of branchlets. The flowers are bisexual, usually with four tepals in a single whorl. There are four stamens and the gynoecium has a single carpel. The fruit is a thin-walled follicle that splits down only one side, releasing one or two seeds before the next growing season.