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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Proteaceae
Petrophile multisecta

Citation: F. Muell., Fragm. Phyt. Aust. 6:242 (1868).

Synonymy: Petrophila multisecta

Common name: Cone-bush, Kangaroo Island conesticks.

Description:
Prickly subshrub to 0.6 m or more high; branchlets densely grey-puberulent; leaves divaricate, rigid, 4-8 cm long, pinnatipartite, glabrous, initial divisions trichotomous, subsequently dichotomous, with segments terete, the final segments many, 2-5 rarely to 10 mm long, petiole 2-4 cm long.

Flowering cones ellipsoid, sessile in the forks of branchlets, with outer bracts lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous outside, sericeous within, with cone scales more or less circular, mucronate, sericeous, partly glabrous towards the base of the cone; perianth cream, in bud 8-15 mm long, tomentose outside, glabrous inside, the segments falling away separately; anthers 1.7-3.5 mm long; ovary surrounded by a tuft of long white bristles; style glabrous; pollen-presenter fusiform, 2.5-3.5 mm long, hirsute, the glabrous tip c. 0.5-1 mm long.

Fruiting cone ellipsoid or broadly so, 1.5-4 cm long; nuts compressed, transverse-obovate, c. 3 mm long, mucronate through the persistent style base, surrounded by erect bristles, long on the margins, shorter on either face.

image of FSA1_Petrophile_mul.jpg twig, flower, perianth segmant, pistil and fruit
Image source: fig. 80 in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Distribution:  On lateritic or calcareous sands, in sclerophyllous woodland and forest.

S.Aust.: KI.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: Oct. — Feb.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Very close to Petrophile conifera Meissner of south-west W. Aust., Bentham's, Fl. Aust. 5 (1870) 335, distinction of glabrous branchlets in the KI plant being misconstrued. Superficially resembles Isopogon ceratophyllus but readily separated by its terete leaf segments.

Author: Not yet available


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