Grevillea callichlaena, commonly known as Mt. Benambra grevillea,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to a restricted part of Victoria in Australia. It is a spreading shrub with elliptic, egg-shaped or broadly lance-shaped leaves, and uniformly red flowers.
Grevillea callichlaena is a spreading shrub that typically grows to high and wide and has densely silky-hairy branchlets. Its leaves are elliptic, egg-shaped or lance-shaped, sometimes broadly so, sometimes with the narrower end towards the base, mostly long and wide with the edges turned down. The lower surface of the leaves is silky-hairy and the veins are conspicuous. The flowers are arranged in pendulous groups of twenty to forty on the ends of branchlets on a rachis long, and are uniformly red and silky-hairy on the outside, the pistil long. Flowering occurs from October to March, but sometimes in other months, and the fruit is a more or less glabrous follicle long.[2]
Grevillea callichlaena was first formally described in 2005 by Bill Molyneux and Val Stajsic in the journal Muelleria from specimens collected from Mount Benambra in the Alpine National Park in 2002.[3] The specific epithet (callichlaena) means "beauty-cloak", referring to the hairs covering the flowers.
Mt. Benambra grevillea grows in woodland, often between scattered granite boulders, in two isolated populations on Mount Benambra in north-eastern Victoria.
The species is listed as Critically Endangered on the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988 Threatened List.[4]
