No. 147. 
Bcmksia paludosa, R.Br. 
A Honeysuckle. 
(Family PROTEACEyE.) 
Botanical description.— Genus, Banksia. (See Part VIII, p. 169.) 
Botanical description.— Species, B. paludosa, R.Br. 
Robert Brown, in his Prod. No. 394, has the following description :— “ B. paludosa, foliis subver- 
ticillatis cuneato-oblongis subtruncatis basi attenuatis extra medium dentato-serratis margine subrecurvis : 
subtus costatis reticulato-venosis, petiolis ramulisque glabris perianthiis sericeis, caule fruticoso.” 
In hot. Reg. t. 697, this plant is still called B. paludosa or the “Marsh Banksia.” It was introduced 
into England by Brown in 1805, who found it in the marshes of Botany Bay, where it is far from 
abundant, and may be reckoned as one of the rarer species.* It is described as “an upright shrub, 
somewhat more than 3 feet high,” and the plant is more fully described than by Brown. 
Meissner, in DC. Prod., xiv, 457, still calls the plant B. paludosa, but Bentham ( B.Fl. v, 554) makes 
it var. paludosa of B. integrifolia, and has the following note :—“ Flowers scarcely larger than in 
B. marginata, the perianth 7 to 8 lines long, but the leaves of one of the common short-leaved forms of 
B. integrifolia.” 
The plant may be redescribed as follows (from perfectly fresh specimens):— 
A dwarf, spreading, much-branched shrub, from 1 foot to nearly 3 feet high, with glabrous branches. 
Leaves with much recurved margins, generally in rather uneven whorls, usually of three or four, from 
inches to 3 inches or a little longer, and from very narrow to about |-inch in their broadest pait; not 
spreading, but pointing upwards at an angle of about 45°; very distinctly obovate or almost spathulate 
somewhat truncate, or obtuse, or sometimes bluntly pointed, gradually narrowed into the very short 
petiole, or sometimes almost sessile; stiffly coriaceous; irregularly toothed on the upper half ; the mid-vein 
prominent, the smaller veins very plainly reticulate, the interspaces only slightly white tomentose. 
Spikes cylindrical, usually from 2 to 4 inches long, and 1£ inches wide between the stigmatic tips, 
very distinctly rufous, which appearance is especially marked before the splitting of the corollas. 
Styles not more than 8 lines long, and inserted strictly at right angles to the axis of the spike, 
quite straight and needle-like, except sometimes the stigmatic end, which is slightly bent; the base away 
from the rather contracted point of insertion, very slightly flattened ; the stigmatic end scarcely thickened. 
The segments of the corolla-tube very obtuse, with very short, shining, and closely appressed hairs 
from base to summit. (Maiden and Camfield in Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. IF., xxiii [1898], 267.) 
Difference from B. integrifolia (see Part VIIT, p. 170); 
The whorled arrangement of its leaves and their similarity in shape to B. integrifolia place it near to 
that species. In the latter, however, the young branches are densely tomentose, while the secondary veins 
of the leaves are almost transverse and comparatively straight. In B. paludosa the young branches are 
almost glabrous, and the secondary veins of the leaves are much more oblique, with apparently a greater 
tendency to curve upwards. But the principal differences are in the flowers. In B. integrifolia the styles 
* This remark appears still to hold good. 
