Silver needlewood

Description

Hakea leucoptera, commonly known as silver needlewood, needle hakea, pin bush or water tree and as booldoobah in Koori language, is a shrub or small tree with rigid, cylindrical, sharply pointed leaves and white, cream-coloured or yellow flowers in late spring and early summer. It is widespread and common in central parts of the Australian mainland. The habit of this plant is highly variable. It can be a small open branched tree to 5 m (20 ft) or a small multi stemmed shrub to 3 m (10 ft). The habitat is usually coarse textured soils and associated with a wide variety of species in woodland communities. It is widespread throughout all mainland states occurring in dense thickets of shrubs, as scattered individual trees or a large parent tree surrounded by offspring. It has a reddish-brown close-grained timber that is soft but hard and brittle when dry. The silvery grey to grey-blue leaves are arranged alternately along the stems. They are rigid and cylindrical in varying length from 8–35 mm (0.3–1 in) long and approximately 1.5 mm (0.06 in) wide with a sharp pointed tip. The young leaves are hoary but as they mature they become smooth. Line drawing of H. leucoptera Fruit of H. leucoptera Showy creamy white flowers are formed on short hairless stalks about 4 mm (0.2 in) long in clusters of 20 or more in axillary racemes. Hakea leucoptera flowers from late spring to summer. Fruit comprises a woody follicle about 20–30 mm (0.8–1 in) long which is swollen at the base but tapers to a point. The capsules open in halves longitudinally revealing 2 seeds that have an opaque wing on one side only. The woody seed can persist on the branches until after the following years flowering. Immature seed will not ripen off the plant and it is best to collect older fruits. Crop size varies from year to year. Once removed the fruits usually dry out and open within 1–2 weeks. It is easily grown from fresh seed which usually germinates in 3–6 weeks and seed is suitable for direct seeding.