 Habit. Photo © I.Holliday |
 Inflorescences, leaves and involucral bud. Photo © W.R.Barker |
 Inflorescences at different stages of development; note the yellow pollen on pollen presenters on the bottom left. Photo © I.Holliday |
 Inflorescences at different stages of development; note the coloured pedicels. Photo © W.R.Barker |
 Inflorescences at different stages of development; note the change from cream to pinkish with age. Photo © W.R.Barker |
 Fruits and inflorescences at different stages of development. Photo © I.Holliday |
 Fruits. Photo © I.Holliday |
Synonymy
Hakea scoparia Meisn., in J.G.C.Lehmann, Pl. Preiss. 1: 556 (1845) subsp. scoparia
Hakea sulcata var. scoparia (Meisn.) Benth., Fl. Austral. 5: 529 (1870). T: Swan River Colony, [W.A.], s.d. [c. 1841], J.Drummond 1: 600; syn: ?B, BM, G, K, LE p.p., MEL, NY, P, PERTH. An image of the NY type specimen can be seen on the New York Botanical Garden site.
Description
Rounded shrub with ascending branches, 1–3.5 m tall, non-sprouting. Branchlets tomentose to appressed-pubescent at flowering, sometimes patchily glabrescent. Leaves ±terete, sometimes compressed, stellate or pentagonal in cross-section, deeply but openly grooved longitudinally, 12–27 cm long, 1.5–2 mm diam., glabrescent; longitudinal veins 5 all around, at angles.
Inflorescence a solitary axillary umbelliform raceme, with 50–70 flowers; pedicels glabrous. Perianth cream, ageing pink or orange-pink. Pistil 13–15 mm long; gland an obtriangular flap, 0.5–0.7 mm high.
Fruit 1–8 per axil, stalked, obliquely ovate-elliptic, ±straight, 1.7–2.0 cm long, 0.8–1.0 cm wide, acuminate, with prominent black-pusticulate tubercles, scarcely beaked but with prominent readily broken apiculum. Seed obliquely ovate, 10–15 mm long, 5–6 mm wide; wing extending (broadly and fully) down one side of body only, not notched, blackish brown.
Distribution and ecology
Occurs in inland south-western W.A. from Yuna south through Wongan Hills, Bruce Rock and Kulin and east to Hyden and Frank Hann Natl Park. Found on yellow sand plain in mallee heath or in lateritic sand, sometimes on breakaways or on hills, or in association with granite outcrops.
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 May–Sept.
Derivation of name
From scoparius, Latin for broom or thin twigs.
How the infraspecific taxa differ
The subspecies differ in fruit length, 1.7-2 cm long in subsp. scoparia vs 2.2-2.5 cm long for subsp. trycherica, and in the depth of the grooving of the leaves, with subsp. scoparia being deeply grooved between the 5 angles while subsp. trycherica is usually only shallowly concave.
Relationships
Part of the Conogynoides group recognised by Bentham and characterised by a conical pollen presenter, veined leaves, glabrous perianth and fruits without horns. Barker et al. (1999) recognised a number of informal morphological groups within the section.
One of these was the Ulicina group. This group of 21 Hakea species was combined morphologically because they all have simple flat leaves or leaves which are apparently terete but when looked at in cross section are clearly angled; these angled leaves are longitudinally furrowed and often referred to as sulcate. Furthermore the group has inflorescences with 6-80 small flowers (with 3-18 mm long pistils) and erect woody fruits.
Members of the group are H. aenigma, H. carinata, H. costata, H. cygna, H. dohertyi, H. erecta, H. gilbertii, H. invaginata, H. lehmanniana, H. marginata, H. meisneriana, H. mitchellii, H. myrtoides, H. pycnoneura, H. repullulans, H. rigida, H. scoparia, H. stenocarpa, H. sulcata, H. subsulcata and H. ulicina, mostly from southern WA but also from south-eastern Australia.
The sulcate-leaved members of this group are H. gilbertii, H. invaginata, H. meisneriana, H. rigida, H. scoparia, H. sulcata and H. subsulcata.
Notes
The leaves are frequently galled, usually with a single swelling occurring at any point along the leaf. Sometimes grown as an ornamental, often wrongly under the name H. sulcata .
Representative specimens
Western Australia: 6.5 km E of Brookton on Corrigin road, M.I.H.Brooker 1872 (CANB, MEL, PERTH); 115 km NE of Lake King on track to Norseman, L.Haegi 1001 (AD, PERTH); 6 km S of Cadoux on Amery road, B.H.Smith 574 (AD, CANB, HO, MEL, NSW, PERTH).
Weblinks
Link to FloraBase treatment of this species for WA.
For further information and images of this species in the Esperance region of Western Australia see William Archer’s Hakea page in Esperance Wildflowers
More photographs of this species can be seen on the Australian National Botanic Gardens site.
Further illustrations
I. Holliday, Hakeas. A Field and Garden Guide 190-1 (2005)
J.A..Young, Hakeas of Western Australia. A Field and Identification Guide 103 (2006).