Grevillea ripicola, commonly known as Collie grevillea, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the South West region of Western Australia. It is a dense, spreading shrub with pinnatipartite leaves with rigid, sharply-pointed lobes, and clusters of yellowish-orange flowers, usually with a red style.
Grevillea ripicola is a dense, spreading or sprawling shrub that typically grows to a height of about high and has ribbed, more or less glabrous branchlets. The leaves are long in outline and pinnatipartite, with widely spreading, rigid, elliptic to linear, sharply-pointed lobes. The leaf lobes are long and wide. The flowers are arranged in clusters of 12 to 20 on a more or less glabrous rachis mostly long, the oldest flowers at the base. The flowers are yellowish-orange, the pistil long and the style usually red. Flowering mainly occurs in October and November and the fruit is an oval follicle long.[1] [2] [3]
Grevillea ripicola was first formally described in 1974 Alex George in the journal Nuytsia based on plant material he collected at Collie in 1965.[4] The specific epithet (ripicola) means "growing on river banks".
Collie grevillea grows near creeks in Jarrah forest, mainly between Collie, Donnybrook and Bridgetown in the Jarrah Forest bioregion of south-western Western Australia.
Grevillea ripicola is classified as "Priority Four" by the Government of Western Australia Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, meaning that it is rare or near threatened.[5]
This grevillea is well adapted to cultivation and is frost hardy and fast-growing. Its dense foliage provides habitat for small birds. It is adaptable to most soils and conditions and has been grown on the east coast, south from Sydney.