#gsb2024

Formerly Dryandra carlinoides.

Another Banksia species known only from the Wongan Hills. No wonder i got it confused with Banksia wonganensis.

photo by Bob Goodale.

Another species of Guichenotia from the Wongan Wildflower Walk!

'Sarotes' is maybe derived from Cisoria which is Latin for a pair of scissors or Kikhṓrion / Cichoria, the Greek and Latin for Chichory. Neither etymology makes much sense, applied to this shrub or the related mallow Thomasia sarotes. Western Australian Plant Names and Their Meanings apparently says it means 'broom-like', but that's a bit of a stretch too unless it's refering to the spindly growth form. The original botanists are all long dead so we can't ask them. Given it's also been known as Sarotes ledifolia, and Thomasia pumila, doesn't help.

Found in a long diagonal band across SW Australia, growing in sandy, clay, loam & gravel soils, and around laterite, granite, and ironstone.

A couple more plants from last year's BioBlitz in Wongan Hills, that I'd managed to misidentify. The photo above, for example, I'd originally thought was the small-flowered Guichenotia micrantha. I've changed the photo on the post about that species.

'impudica' means 'shameless' but I don't know why this species is considered less bashful than the others.

G. impudica is a dwarf shrub with hairy new growth, found growing in laterite around Wongan Hills (although in this case it was in sand, which is puzzling), and a few locations nearer Geraldton.

Somehow missed covering this one earlier - I should probably avoid having 50 tabs open at once.

Found growing in dry heath and scrubland in the southern half of WA, out to the edge of the Great Victoria Desert. It rarely exceeds 5m in height.

Described in 1821 by Jaques Étienne Gay in Mémoires du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, and named after Antoine Guichenot, the gardener's boy on the 1801–1803 French scientific voyage to Australia under Nicolas Baudin.

Found in a band across the SW from Esperance to Geraldton, growing in sand and laterite on sandplains, rocky hills and granite outcrops.

All 17 Guichenotia are endemic to WA. There's at least 5 species around Wongan - I'm pretty sure I have the right ID on this one, comparing the leaf size, hairiness and shape to that of the flowers.

AKA Dysentery Bush

In South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales it's limited to coastal areas, but in Western Australia it's found across most of the Wheatbelt and well out into the arid zones as well. Wind pruning often keeps the plants less than 50cm tall on the coast, but in more sheltered climes it can exceed 3m. The chemicals the plants produces varies with the environment, too - in coastal regions, oleanolic acids and ursolic acids. Shrubs in low rainfall areas contain betulinic acid.

Sometimes used as a native hedge, although germination rates are best if the seeds are passed through a bird first. The fruit is toxic to humans, but the bark is used by the indigenous peoples to treat dysentery.

There's at least five species of she-oak growing around Wongan Hills, and this is the only one I'm confident with the ID on. Probably because there was an information sign on the species about 2m away. I'd have had to get photos of the cones at various ages, male and female flowers, details of the needles and the tiny scale-like leaves that encircle each segment of the needle, and bark texture to be sure. Like so many of the plants around the area, they differ in their preferred soil type - A. huegeliana for example prefers to grow around granite outcrops.

Found in all mainland states and territories of Australia, and now many other parts of the world after becoming a popular ornamental shrub that thrives in sunny dry well-drained positions. The seed can be induced to germinate by briefly dipping in boiling water - this species being one of many in Australia that not only survives fire but requires it.