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Banksia canei
Banksia canei, commonly known as the mountain banksia, is a species of shrub that is endemic to southeastern Australia. It is generally encountered as a many-branched shrub that grows up to 3 m (10 ft) high, with narrow leaves and the yellow inflorescences (flower spikes) appearing from late summer to early winter. The old flowers fall off the spikes and up to 150 finely furred follicles develop, which remain closed until burnt in a bushfire. Each follicle bears two winged seeds. Response to fire is poorly known, although it is thought to regenerate by seed. Birds such as the yellow-tufted honeyeater and various insects forage among the flower spikes. It is frost tolerant in cultivation, but copes less well with aridity or humidity and is often short-lived in gardens. One cultivar, Banksia 'Celia Rosser', was registered in 1978, but has subsequently vanished.
Banksia canei is somewhat slow-growing in cultivation, and takes around five to seven years to flower from seed. Its furry-follicled fruiting cones are attractive, although generally obscured by foliage. Although grown successfully in England and tolerant of temperatures to −12 °C (10 °F), Banksia canei has a reputation of being difficult to keep alive in Australian gardens. Plants often grow well as seedlings in pots, but perish once planted in the ground. The species is tolerant to frost, but not to aridity or possibly more humid conditions. The species prefers a sunny aspect and fair drainage. It has been grown in inland New South Wales on the Southern Tablelands and Rylstone. Banksia canei seed requires stratification – storing at 5 °C (41 °F) for 60 days – before it germinates, which takes a further 6 to 25 days. Salkin proposed this was necessary so that seed released in a summer or autumn bushfire would lie dormant over the winter months before germinating in the spring. Banksia saxicola and some Banksia marginata seeds of subalpine provenance also share this trait.
Several disjunct populations of Banksia canei have been recorded across alpine areas of southeastern Australia, generally at altitudes of 500 to 1,000 m (1,600 to 3,300 ft) in northeastern Victoria and southeastern New South Wales. One outlier at a lower altitude has been found on land partly cleared for agriculture at 250 m (820 ft) elevation at Yowrie. The species is listed as "Rare in Victoria" on the Department of Sustainability and Environment's Advisory List of Rare Or Threatened Plants In Victoria. In a 1978 paper reviewing the species, Alf Salkin coined the term topodeme to indicate a geographically isolated population of plants, derived from the Ancient Greek words topos "place" and deme "people" or "county (population)". Salkin described four populations (topodemes), each found in granite-based rocky soils in subalpine regions, and isolated from one another by wide river valleys. They would have occupied lower altitudes at cooler geological periods and higher altitudes in warmer times. Each of the main four populations varies from the others in their leaf morphology.
Banksia acanthopoda · Prickly Banksia · Banksia acuminata · Wallum Banksia · Banksia alliacea · Cactus Dryandra · Northern Banksia · Yilgarn Dryandra · Banksia archaeocarpa · Banksia arctotidis · Banksia armata var. armata · Banksia armata var. ignicida
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Banksia canei by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
