Persoonia laurina, commonly known as the laurel-leaved or laurel geebung, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae native to central New South Wales in eastern Australia. Found in sclerophyll forest, it grows to a height of . The yellow flowers appear in late spring.
Persoonia laurina was one of five species described by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in his 1805 work Synopsis Plantarum,[1] from material collected by John White in 1793 and 1794. The species name refers to a resemblance to Laurus "laurel".[2] James Edward Smith described this species as the rusty persoonia (Persoonia ferruginea) in his 1805 book Exotic Botany.[3] The horticulturist Joseph Knight used Smith's name in his controversial 1809 work On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae,[4] as did Robert Brown in his 1810 work Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. Brown also recognised that the two names were the same species.[5]
In 1870, George Bentham published the first infrageneric arrangement of Persoonia in Volume 5 of his landmark Flora Australiensis. He divided the genus into three sections, placing P. ferruginea in P. sect. Amblyanthera.[6]
Within the genus, P. laurina is classified in the Laurina group, a group of three species from southeastern Australia that all have a lignotuber.[7]
Three subspecies are recognised. First recorded as distinct in 1981, they were officially described as subspecies in 1991 by Lawrie Johnson and Peter Weston of the New South Wales Herbarium.[8]
Persoonia laurina grows as a shrub with an upright or sprawling habit reaching anywhere from 0.2mto2mm (00.7feetto07feetm) tall. New growth is covered with dense grey to rusty-brown hairs. Flowering takes place over November to January. Seedlings have only two cotyledon leaves, unlike many members of the genus, which have more.[7]
All three subspecies resprout after bushfire from a woody lignotuber. Subspecies laurina is estimated to have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years.[9]
The bark was traditionally used by Aboriginal people to soak fishing lines and toughen them.[2] Drupes were eaten by indigenous people on the Beecroft Peninsula, though were not as highly regarded as those of P. lanceolata.[10]
P. laurina is an attractive plant with horticultural potential. Cultivating it would most likely require good water drainage, a position in sun or dappled shade and acidic soil. It is hardy to frosts.[11] However, it appears to be short-lived in cultivation, with plants at the Mount Annan Botanic Gardens surviving for a maximum of six years after planting out.[7] While difficult to propagate by seed,[2] it has been easier to propagate by cuttings of new growth.[7]