 Photo © I.Holliday |
 Photo © W.R.Barker |
 Photo © W.R.Barker |
 Photo © W.R.Barker |
 Fruits held closed within trunk of plant, on cutting the trunk fruits open. Photo © W.R.Barker |
Synonymy
Hakea pandanicarpa R.Br. subsp. crassifolia (Meisn.) R.M.Barker, J. Adelaide Bot. Gard. 13: 105 (1990)
Hakea crassifolia Meisn., in J.G.C.Lehmann, Pl. Preiss. 1: 570 (1845). T: Konkoberup, [Mt Melville near Cape Riche], W.A., 19 Nov. 1840, L.Preiss 550; syn: G, G-DC, HBG, LD, LE, M, MEL, MO, NY p.p., P.
An image of the NY type specimen of Preiss 550 can be seen on the New York Botanical Garden site and of the
Description
Small tree or shrub, rounded or erect, 1–4 m high, non-lignotuberous. Branchlets and young leaves appressed-pubescent, ferruginous. Leaves simple, narrowly elliptic or obovate, 3–12 cm long, 0.6–3.3 cm wide, attenuate, entire, rounded, rarely truncate.
Inflorescence a raceme with 4–14 flowers; rachis 1–6.5 mm long, tomentose; pedicels 5–7.5 mm long, densely appressed-pubescent with hairs ferruginous and white, extending onto perianth. Perianth 6–11 mm long, cream-white inside. Pistil 13–16 mm long; gland U-shaped.
Fruit obliquely obovate, 4.5–5.5 cm long, 3.7–4.5 cm wide, rugose-reticulate, somewhat corky but protuberances not distinct. Seed broadly ovate, elliptic or obovate, 25–36 mm long; wing encircling seed body.
Distribution and ecology
Found in an area bounded by Newdegate, Albany and Ravensthorpe, south-western W.A.
To plot an up to date distribution map based on herbarium collections for this species see Australia's Virtual Herbarium. Localities outside the native range may represent cultivated or naturalised records.
Flowering time
Flowers (Aug.–) Sept.–Nov.
Derivation of name
From crassus, Latin for thick or fat and folius, Latin for leaf, a reference to the thick leaves of this species. However the leaves are by no meant the thickest to be found in Hakea and this character is not particularly diagnostic.
How the infraspecific taxa differ
Subspecies pandanicarpa and subspecies crassifolia can be distinguished by the ornamentation of the fruit surface. Ssp. pandanicarpa has decidedly raised corky tetrahedral projections on the fruit from a young age while ssp. crassifolia is more or less smooth at a young age, developing a rougher but still comparatively smooth corky layer with age, as can be seen in the photograph here. The pattern on the outer layer of the fruit of ssp. crassifolia resembles that of drying mud in a claypan.
Ssp. pandanicarpa also tends to have a more easterly distribution than ssp. crassifolia. It is found from Ravensthorpe to Isaelite Bay while ssp. crassifolia occurs in the Newdegate-Albany-Ravensthorpe area.
Relationships
Part of Section Hakea of Bentham (as Euhakea) and characterised by a non-conical pollen presenter, leaves without obvious venation, perianths with or without hairs and fruits with or without horns. Barker et al. (1999) recognised a number of informal morphological groups within the section.
Within this section 6 species were assigned to the informal Ceratophylla group by Barker et al. (1999). The group is close to the Obliqua group, sharing the morphological characteristics of few-flowered inflorescences with pubescent flowers on an obscure rachis, oblique pollen presenters and distinctly woody fruits without horns and usually without beaks and seed in which the wing encircles the seed body or is broadly down one side; the groups differ in the flat leaves of this group compared with the terete leaves of the Obliqua group.
Members of the group are H. baxteri, H. brownii, H. ceratophylla, H. flabellifolia, H. hookeriana and H. pandanicarpa, all from south-west WA.
Notes
Fruits can be held closed on a plant for a long time as shown by these embedded within trunk of mature H. pandanicarpa at Wittunga Botanic Gardens; when the tree was cut down the fruits still opened despite the pressure from the trunk.
Representative specimens
Western Australia: Mt Short, Ravensthorpe, E.M.Bennett 2493 (PERTH); Kalgan Plains, C.A.Gardner 777 (PERTH); 37 km S of Borden, J.W.Green 392 (PERTH); S of Kulin, R.D.Royce 6678 (PERTH); NW corner of Fitzgerald River Reserve, R.A.Saffrey 1490 (PERTH).
Weblinks
Link to FloraBase treatment of this species for WA.
A photograph of this species can be seen on the Australian National Botanic Gardens site.
Further illustrations
J.Young, Hakeas of W. Australia, Botanical District of Avon 18, 19, 78 (1997).
I. Holliday, Hakeas. A Field and Garden Guide 156-7 (2005)
J.A..Young, Hakeas of Western Australia. A Field and Identification Guide 85 (2006)