Conospermum eatoniae, commonly known as blue lace,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a spreading shrub with egg-shaped leaves only present on young plants, and panicles of glabrous blue, tube-shaped flowers with pale green bracteoles.
Conospermum eatoniae is a spreading, much-branched shrub that typically grows up to tall and wide. Egg-shaped to oblong leaves are only present at the base of young plants. The flowers are arranged in panicles with secondary dichotomous branching, ending in a head of 2 to 10 flowers. The bracteoles are more or less round, long, wide, and pale green. The perianth is blue, forming a tube long. The upper lip is egg-shaped, long and wide, the lower lip joined for long with lobes long. Flowering occurs from August to October, and the fruit is a nut about long and wide and with velvety orange hairs.[2]
Conospermum eatoniae was first formally described in 1904 by the botanist Ernst Georg Pritzel in Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie, from specimens collected by Alice Eaton near Tammin.[3] [4] The specific epithet (eatoniae) honours the collector of the type specimen.[5]
Blue lace grows in sandy soils between Coorow, Goomalling and Tammin in the Avon Wheatbelt and Geraldton Sandplains bioregions in the south-west of Western Australia.[2]
This species of Conospermum is listed as Priority Three by the Government of Western Australia Department of Parks and Wildlife, meaning that it is poorly known, and known from only a few locations but is not under imminent threat.[6]