42 PROTEACEAE. 
GREVILLEA. Silk Oak. 
(Family Proteaceae). 
Tender rapid-growing trees. 
Twigs moderately stout, for a 
time rather irregulartly fluted 
from the nodes: pith rather large, 
angled, continuous. Buds mode- 
rate, solitary, sessile or develop- 
ing promptly at least into dwarf- 
branches, oblong, naked, very 
hairy. Leaf-scars alternate, round 
to transversely elliptical, deeply 
3-lobed, somewhat raised at the 
lower margin: bundle-traces 3 
compound groups:  stipule-scars 
lacking. 
Grevillea robusta, which is now 
one of the most commonly grown 
potted plants of the florist because 
of its ready cultivation and at- 
tractive fern-like foliage, has been 
much planted in dry tropical 
countries where it makes a mod- 
erately large open-topped shade- or avenue-tree. During the 
flowering season its large clusters of orange flowers are much 
frequented by certain birds which feed on the abundant 
nectar and the insects attracted by this. Its most obvious 
disqualification as a shade tree lies in the tenacity with which 
its foliage holds dust, so that except in the rainy season it 
is dingily gray rather than attractively green. In parts of 
Guatemala the silk oak has found favor as a cover-tree for 
coffee plantations which it shades adequately without de- 
priving the crop of properly distributed direct sunshine. 
Twigs and buds at first very red-hairy. G. robusta. 
