Grevillea pluricaulis explained

Grevillea pluricaulis is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic the Northern Territory in Australia. It is an erect shrub with elliptic leaves, the edges wavy, and light green to apricot-coloured or creamy brown flowers with a pale orange-apricot to pink style.

Description

Grevillea pluricaulis is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has several erect stems arising from a lignotuber. Its leaves are usually elliptic, sometimes narrowly so, long and wide. The edges of the leaves are wavy, the lower surface with hairs flattened against the surface. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils on one side of a rachis long and are light green to apricot-coloured or creamy brown, the pistil long, the style pale orange-apricot to pink. Flowering mainly occurs from April to October and the fruit is a woolly-hairy, oblong to more or less spherical follicle about long.[1] [2]

Taxonomy

This grevillea was first formally described in 1986 by Donald McGillivray who gave it the name Grevillea goodii subsp. pluricaulis in his New Names in Grevillea (Proteaceae), from specimens collected in 1973 near the Finniss River Crossing by Clyde Dunlop.[3] In 1994, Peter Olde and Neil Marriott raised the subspecies to species status as Grevillea pluricaulis.[4] The specific epithet (pluricaulis) means "several stems".[5]

Distribution and habitat

Grevillea pluricaulis occurs in the tropical Top End of the Northern Territory, from Delissaville to the Finniss River, Port Keats and the Newcastle Range, as well as on Melville Island. It grows in open mixed eucalypt forest or shrubland on sandy or lateritic soils.[1] [2]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Grevillea pluricaulis . Australian Biological Resources Study, Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment: Canberra . 23 August 2022.
  2. Web site: Grevillea pluricaulis . Northern Territory Government . 23 August 2022.
  3. Web site: Grevillea goodii subsp. pluricaulis. APNI. 23 August 2022.
  4. Web site: Grevillea pluricaulis. APNI. 23 August 2022.
  5. Book: Sharr . Francis Aubi . George . Alex . Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings . 2019 . Four Gables Press . Kardinya, WA . 9780958034180 . 3rd. 280.