Caley's grevillea

Description

Grevillea caleyi, also known as Caley's grevillea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to a restricted area of New South Wales. It is an open, spreading shrub with deeply divided leaves with linear lobes, and fawn flowers with a maroon to red style. Grevillea caleyi is an open, spreading shrub that typically grows to 1–4 m (3 ft 3 in – 13 ft 1 in) and wide. It has deeply divided leaves 70–180 mm (2.8–7.1 in) long and 30–75 mm (1.2–3.0 in) wide with linear to lance-shaped lobes, the narrower end towards the base, the lobes 15–35 mm (0.59–1.38 in) long, 2–6 mm (0.079–0.236 in) wide with the edges turned downwards, and hairy on the lower surface. The flowers are arranged in toothbrush-like groups on a rachis 40–80 mm (1.6–3.1 in) long, and are fawn with a maroon to red style with a green tip. The pistil is 25–28 mm (0.98–1.10 in) long and the style is glabrous. Flowering mostly occurs from August to December and the fruit is a woolly hairy follicle 17–21 mm (0.67–0.83 in) long. Grevillea caleyi was first formally described in 1830 by Robert Brown in Supplementum primum prodromi florae Novae Hollandiae from specimens collected in 1805, near Port Jackson by George Caley. The species has the common name Caley's grevillea. Caley's grevillea grows in woodland on sandstone ridgetops in the Terrey Hills-Belrose area in the north of Sydney. This grevillea is listed as "critically endangered" under the Australian Government Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and the New South Wales Government Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016. The main threats to the species include habitat loss and fragmentation, inappropriate fire regimes, recreation activities and rubbish dumping. 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.