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 

 L CI^P ) 1$}% potted plants of the florist because 



^\^^*^ K\ 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. 



