No. 1. 
Grevillea robusta, A. Cunn. 
The Silky Oak. 
(Natural Order PROTEACE^E.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Grevillea, R.Br. 
Floivers. —Hermaphrodite. 
Corolla*. —Irregular or regular, the tube revolute or curved under the limb or straight and slender, 
the limb globular or rarely ovoid, usually oblique, the laminre usually cohering long after the 
tube has opened. 
Anthers. —All perfect, ovate, sessile in the base of the concave lamime, the connective not produced 
beyond the cells. 
Ilypogynous glands. —United in a single semi-annular or semi-circular gland occupying the upper 
(often the shortest) side of the torus or rarely completely annular surrounding the ovary, or 
altogether wanting. 
Ovary. —Stipitate or rarely sessile, with two ampliitropous ovules laterally attached about the 
middle. 
Style. —Filiform or somewhat dilated, usually long and protruding from the slit on the lower side 
of the perianth tube before the summit is set free from the limb, ultimately straightened and 
erect, or in a few species of Lissostyles and Conogyne remaining hooked ; more or less 
dilated at the end into a straight oblique or lateral cone or disk bearing the small stigma in 
the centre of the disk or at the summit of the cone. 
Fruit. —A follicle, usually oblique with the ventral suture curved, either coriaceous and opening 
along the upper margin, or rarely woody and opening almost or quite in two valves. 
Seeds. —One or two, flat orbicular or oblong, bordered all round by a membranous wing or 
narrowly winged at the end or outer margin only or entirely wingless. Hard shrubs or trees. 
Leaves. —Alternate, very diversified in shape. 
Flowers. —In pairs along the rhachis of a short and umbel-like or elongated raceme, rarely 
reduced to a single pair; the racemes either terminal or also axillary, rarely all axillary. The 
indumentum usually consists of closely appressed hairs attached by the centre, rarely of 
erect or spreading hairs, and then usually forked at the base or clustered. (B.F1., v. 417.) 
The genus Grevillea is a very large one, approaching 200 species. It is 
almost peculiar to Australia, seven or eight species occurring in New Caledonia. 
It includes many beautiful flowering plants ; occurs in the dry interior and the 
moist coast districts. Most of the species are small shrubs. G. robusta is the 
largest of the genus. 
* Bentham used the term “ perianth,” but it is no longer employed in descriptions of the Protearew. It is clearly 
the corolla, the calyx being wanting. Proof of the correctness of this view is obtained by comparing the Protcaccce with 
the nearly allied Lorunthucece, in which the calyx is often still visible as a truncate rim. 
A 
