No. 143. 
Banksia spimilosa, Sm. 
A Honeysuckle. 
(Family PROTEACEvE.) 
Botanical description. —Genus, Banksia. (See Part VIII, p. 169.) 
Botanical description. —Species, B. spinulosa, Sm. Specim., Bot. N. Holl. 13, t. 4 
(1793). 
A tall shrub, glabrous, or the young branches minutely pubescent. 
Leaves narrow-linear, notched at the end with a prominent point in the notch, and often bordered 
towards the end with two or three small teeth on each side, otherwise entire, with revolute 
margins and the midrib prominent underneath, to 3 inches long. 
Spikes' ovoid, and 2 to 3 inches long, or rarely cylindrical and twice as long. (More usually 
cylindrical.—J.H. M.) 
Bracts with broad, shortly acuminate, silky-pubescent tips. 
Flowers yellow, larger than in B. erici/olia. 
Perianth silky, the tube nearly 1 inch long. 
Style, 1^ to 11 inch long, often purple, with a very short stigmatic end not thicker than the style. 
Fruiting cone cylindrical. 
Capsules scarcely protruding, glabrous, thick, smooth. (B. FI. v, 547). 
Botanical Name. — Banksia, already explained (see Part VIII, p. 170); 
spinulosa , a diminutive from the Latin spinus, a thorn or prickle, and hence, having 
small thorns or prickles. It refers, in the present species, to the small teeth of the 
margin of the leaf. 
Vernacular Names. —I know of none. People could, of course, call it the 
“ Spinulous-leaved Honeysuckle,” but with every desire to further the use of 
vernacular names for plants, I very much doubt the practical utility of designations 
such as these. Only educated men could be expected to use such a name as the one 
I have quoted, but what use it would be to them I fail to see, since they would have 
no difficulty in saying “ Banksia spinulosa a shorter and more euphonious name. 
The spread of education generally and the teaching of botany in schools will 
go far to promote the use of botanical names amongst people at large. Vernacular 
names, which are plant nick-names, will be increasingly coined as the public learn 
to discriminate more plants, but it does not seem easy to control the choice of the 
great public in this matter. European names arc the product of a thousand years 
and more. 
