14 University of California Publications in Botany. IT OL - 4 



HAKEAS CULTIVATED IN CALIFORNIA. 



The Hakeas are all evergreen shrubs and natives of Australia, 

 where about one hundred species are known. Those so far 

 introduced into California, eleven in number, are here grown 

 exclusively for ornamental purposes, although several of them 

 (particularly H. suaveolens and H. gibbosa) could be used to 

 advantage as a chaparral covering for many of our lower moun- 

 tains and foothills. These species are quite hardy, require 

 neither abundant moisture nor cultivation, and, through their 

 rigid, spiny foliage, are well protected from animals. 



The ornamental value of Hakea lies .chiefly in its foliage. 

 This is exceptionally beautiful in the broad-leaved H. elliptica, 

 where the new growth is of a most beautiful bronze color, or in 

 some lights almost golden. It is a very satisfactory subject for 

 lawn or yard planting where something aside from the usual 

 dull green is desired. H. nitida with its holly-like, bright-green 

 leaves is also to be considered in this connection, while if a pale 

 green is desired H. undulata should be chosen. The last three 

 species treated in this paper are also grown for their foliage 

 but should be used only where a rigid effect is desired or as a 

 hedge impenetrable to animals and pedestrians. 



The only species with showy flowers, so far as our forms are 

 concerned, is H. laurina, and even here our interest is aroused 

 more by the oddity of the flower than by its beauty. The 

 abundant scarlet balls of flowers emitting the long golden styles 

 are sometimes two and one-half inches in diameter and render 

 this a most striking shrub, so much so that in Italy it has been 

 referred to as "the glory of the gardens of the Riviera." The 

 remaining species have mostly smaller white flowers. 



Botanical Description of Hakea (Family Proteaceae) .. 



Australian evergreen shrubs with alternate ex-stipulate leaves of 

 diversified shape, being flat and broad in some species (and then either 

 entire or merely toothed), terete in others (and then either simple and 

 entire or pinnately parted). Pubescence mostly of appressed hairs at- 

 tached by the middle, or the plant glabrous. Flowers in pairs, the pairs- 

 commonly crowded in close racemes or globose clusters which are mostly 

 sessile in the leaf-axils. Corolla irregular, the tube slender, usually 

 recurved under the limb which is mostly globular, the 4 lobes cohering 



