Some West Australian Banksias 
by L. Fell 
Faced with the enormous richness 
of the West AustraHan flora it is rather 
hard to decide on which family to talk 
about; but in the south-west, banksias 
are visible to everyone and the identi- 
fication key, by leaf shape, is easy to 
follow. There is the problem in that 
many of the best, flower late in spring 
or in summer. Coming west along 
Route 1 from Esperance, about a mile 
from the turn west, is a wide gravel 
scrape on the left; and here if you pull 
in, is Banksia pulchella about 3 feet 
in height, with yellow brushes, not 
pendant, and a small, nearly round 
cone- It is an attractive small shrub. 
A mile or two further on, in a patch 
of deep sand is the large bush, B. 
speciosa, with very long grey-green, 
deeply indented leaves. The brush is 
large, almost cone shaped, of pale 
yellow and silver-grey, with the flowers 
held outside the foliage. This is a spec- 
tacular tall bush, growing here only on 
deep sands. Anywhere along the un- 
cleared roadsides one can find B. 
repens and B. prostrata, both prostrate 
forms. The Esperance variety of B. 
repens is almost mauve, as compared 
with that in the Stirlings, and the brush 
is longer. Between Esperance and 
Ravensthorpe, Baud, {Banksia nutans) 
with its rabbit like cones held at the 
base of the stem and B. sphaerocarpa, 
with its close relation violacea (which 
has a small cylindrical wine coloured 
brush), can be found on sand plains 
by the roadsides. They grow to about 
3 feet in height. 
About nine miles east of Ravens- 
thorpe, a gravel road turns left to 
Hopetoun. About one mile down this 
road is B. lehmanniana, growing as a 
dense attractive tall bush growing to 
about 4 feet 6 inches, with pale yellow 
brushes and big seed cones. Along 
this road also, can be seen the rare 
southern extension of the beautiful 
creeper Marianthus pictus and Euca- 
lyptus burdettiana which is confined 
also to this area. At Jerramun- 
gup, still on the highway, turn 
left on Route 1 towards Albany. 
After about 30 miles, on the 
left, is a turn towards Bremer Bay, 
where if the Gnowangerup Shire has 
not totally destroyed the road verges, 
one can find B. baxteri, B. dryan- 
droides, B. coccinea, B. grandis, and 
B. quercifolia. B. baxteri is a magnifi- 
cent shrub of about 3 ft., with large 
golden flowers held well above the 
foliage. B. grandis and B. dryandroides 
are worth some discussion, being 
protean in their changes of ecology and 
form, and typifying the difficulties with 
some WA flora. B. grandis is found 
from Perth to near Esperance, within 
the 20" isohyet. Growing in the Jarrah 
forest to nearly 50 feet as a tree, it can 
also be found along the limestone head- 
lands of the south coast as a prostrate 
shrub; and yet again on sandplain near 
Bremer Bay as a small shrub 3 to 6 
feet in height. On Cape D'Entre- 
casteaux, facing the westerly gales, it 
produces in November a magnificent 
dark green brush, from a base less than 
3 feet high. At this stage the brush, 
which later changes to yellow, is a 
favourite food of the White-tailed 
Black Cockatoo. B. dryandroides 
(Calyptorliynchus baudinii) is less 
spectacular with a small yellowish 
brown brush, but very attractive 
foliage. Found in the Stirlings area, and 
eastward along the coast to the Gaird- 
32 
Vict. Nat.— Vol. 86 
