Banksia ericifolia, the heath-leaved banksia, or lantern banksia, is a species of woody shrub of the family Proteaceae native to Australia. It grows in two separate regions of Central and Northern New South Wales east of the Great Dividing Range. Well known for its orange or red autumn inflorescences, which contrast with its green fine-leaved heath-like foliage, it is a medium to large shrub that can reach high and wide, though is usually half that size. In exposed heathlands and coastal areas, it is more often .
Banksia ericifolia was one of the original Banksia species collected by Joseph Banks around Botany Bay in 1770 and was named by Carl Linnaeus the Younger, son of Carl Linnaeus, in 1782. A distinctive plant, it has split into two subspecies: Banksia ericifolia subspecies ericifolia of the Sydney region and Banksia ericifolia subspecies macrantha of the New South Wales Far North Coast which was recognised in 1996.
Banksia ericifolia has been widely grown in Australian gardens on the east coast for many years, and is used to a limited extent in the cut flower industry. Compact dwarf cultivars such as Banksia 'Little Eric' have become more popular in recent years with the trend toward smaller gardens.
Description
Banksia ericifolia grows as a large shrub up to in height, though often smaller, around , in exposed places such as coastal or mountain heathlands. The grey-coloured bark is smooth and fairly thin with lenticels; however it can thicken significantly with age. The linear dark green leaves are small and narrow, long and up to 1 mm wide, generally with two small teeth at the tips. The leaves are crowded and alternately arranged on the branches. New growth generally occurs in summer and is an attractive lime green colour.
Flowering is in autumn, or in winter in cooler areas; the inflorescences are flower spikes high and broad or so. Each individual flower consists of a tubular perianth made up of four fused tepals, and one long wiry style. Characteristic of the taxonomic section in which it is placed, the styles are hooked rather than straight. The styles' ends are initially trapped inside the upper perianth parts, but break free at anthesis, when the flowers open. The spikes are red or gold in overall colour, with styles golden, orange, orange-red or burgundy. Some unusual forms have striking red styles on a whitish perianth. Very occasionally, forms with all yellow inflorescences are seen. Though not terminal, the flower spikes are fairly prominently displayed emerging from the foliage; they arise from two- to three-year-old nodes.
Old flower spikes fade to brown and then grey with age; old flower parts soon fall, revealing numerous small dark grey to dull black finely furred follicles. Oblong in shape and in diameter, the follicles are ridged on each valve and remain closed until burnt by fire. Banksia ericifolia responds to fire by seeding, the parent plant being killed. As plants take several years to flower in the wild, it is very sensitive to too-frequent burns and has been eliminated in some areas where these occur. With time and the production of more cones with seed-containing follicles, however, plants can store up to 16,500 seeds at eight years of age. Some plants produce multiple flower spikes, possibly of varying sizes, from a single point of origin.
Taxonomy
B. ericifolia was first collected at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770, by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on the Endeavour during Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Solander coined the (unpublished) binomial name Leucadendrum ericaefolium in Banks' Florilegium. However, the species was not published until April 1782, when Carl Linnaeus the Younger described the first four Banksia species in his Supplementum Plantarum. Linnaeus distinguished the species by their leaf shapes and named them accordingly. Thus the species with leaves reminiscent of heather (at the time classified in the genus Erica) was given the specific name ericaefolia, from the Latin , meaning "heather", and , meaning "leaf". This spelling was later adjusted to "ericifolia"; thus the full name for the species is Banksia ericifolia L.f., with the initials L.f. identifying Carolus Linnaeus the Younger.
While many Banksia species have undergone much taxonomic change since publication, the distinctive B. ericifolia has remained largely unchanged as a species concept. Consequently, the species has no taxonomic synonyms; it does, however, have three nomenclatural synonyms. The first synonym, Banksia phylicaefolia Salisb, was published by the English botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury in his 1796 Prodromus stirpium in horto ad Chapel Allerton vigentium. It was intended as a replacement name for B. ericaefolia, but Salisbury gave no reason why such a replacement was necessary. The name was therefore superfluous, and hence illegitimate. The second synonym was created in 1891, when Otto Kuntze, in his Revisio Generum Plantarum, rejected the generic name Banksia L.f., on the grounds that the name Banksia had previously been published in 1776 as Banksia J.R.Forst & G.Forst, referring to the genus now known as Pimelea. Kuntze proposed Sirmuellera as an alternative, referring to this species as Sirmuellera ericifolia. For the same reason, James Britten transferred the species to the genus Isostylis as Isostylis ericifolia in 1905. These applications of the principle of priority were largely ignored, and Banksia L.f. was formally conserved and Sirmuellera rejected in 1940.
A recent change to the species' taxonomy is the recognition, in 1981, of an infraspecific taxon. The existence of different forms of B. ericifolia was first recognised in 1979 by the amateur botanist Alf Salkin, who noted three distinct forms of the species, with one being a possible hybrid with Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii. Salkin gave his northern form the provisional infraspecific name "microphylla", but when Alex George published a formal description in his 1981 The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae), he named it B. ericifolia var. macrantha. In 1996, it was promoted to subspecific rank as B. ericifolia subsp. macrantha.
Placement within Banksia Banksia ericifolia has traditionally been described as lying within series Spicigerae of Banksia, together with Banksia spinulosa and various western Hairpin-like Banksias such as B. seminuda and B. brownii. This series is placed in Banksia sect. Oncostylis according to Alex George's taxonomy of Banksia, but directly into Banksia subg. Banksia in Thiele's arrangement based on cladistic analysis. Kevin Thiele additionally placed it in a subseries Ericifoliae, but this was not supported by George.
Under George's taxonomic arrangement of Banksia, B. ericifolia's placement may be summarised as follows: Genus Banksia Subgenus Banksia Section Banksia Section Coccinea Section Oncostylis Series Spicigerae B. spinulosa - B. ericifolia - B. verticillata - B. seminuda - B. littoralis - B. occidentalis - B. brownii Series Tricuspidae Series Dryandroidae Series Abietinae Subgenus Isostylis
Molecular research by American botanist Austin Mast suggests that B. spinulosa and B. ericifolia may be more closely related to Banksia ser. Salicinae, with includes Banksia integrifolia and its relatives.
In 2005, Mast, Eric Jones and Shawn Havery published the results of their cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for Banksia. They inferred a phylogeny markedly different from the accepted taxonomic arrangement, including finding Banksia to be paraphyletic with respect to Dryandra. A full new taxonomic arrangement was not published at the time, but early in 2007 Mast and Australian botanist Kevin Thiele initiated a rearrangement by transferring Dryandra to Banksia, and publishing B. subg. Spathulatae for the species having spoon-shaped cotyledons; in this way they also redefined the autonym B. subg. Banksia. They foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of Dryandra was complete; in the meantime, if Mast and Thiele's nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then B. ericifolia is placed in B. subg. Spathulatae.
Hybrids with B. spinulosa var. spinulosa have been recorded in the wild, at Pigeon House Mountain in Morton National Park. Banksia 'Giant Candles' was a chance garden hybrid between B. ericifolia and B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii.
Subspecies
Two geographically distinct forms are recognised:
Banksia ericifolia subsp. ericifolia The nominate race is found in the Sydney basin, south to the Illawarra and north to Collaroy, as well as the Blue Mountains. The seedling leaves have 2–6 teeth on each margin, while the perianths are long and pistils are long. Salkin noted that this subspecies often grew in association with Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii and that there were plants with longer leaves some 20–25 mm (–1 in) long with entire, curled margins. He gave them the name "longifolia" and suspected these may have been hybrids.
Banksia ericifolia subsp. macrantha The northern race is found on the New South Wales north coast, from Crowdy Head northwards to the Queensland border. Described as a distinct subspecies in 1996 by Alex George from material he collected at Byron Bay in 1975, it is distinguished by finer foliage, more crowded leaves and larger flowers, with the perianths long and pistils long. The seedling leaves have one, or occasionally two teeth on each margin. Salkin observed that the inflorescences tended to be terminal rather than axial, and others have noted them to be sometimes taller than the nominate subspecies. Crowdy Bay, in particular, hosts specimens with spikes up to in height.
Name and symbolism In 1992, B. ericifolia was adopted as the official plant of Sydney, and is sometimes seen in amenity plantings and parks around the city. It was known as wadanggari (pron. "wa-tang-gre") to the local Eora and Darug inhabitants of the Sydney basin.
Distribution and habitat In nature, the variety ericifolia is found on acidic sandstone-based soils; either in elevated heathland within of the coast around the Sydney basin, from Collaroy south to Jervis Bay, or elevated sandstone soils in mountainous areas such as the Blue Mountains and the Budawangs. These heathlands are often moist, with access to some form of underground water, and can even be quite swampy. It can form dense thickets with the Dagger Hakea (Hakea teretifolia) and Scrub She-oak (Allocasuarina distyla). Other plants it associates with include the Coast Tea-tree (Leptospermum laevigatum) and smaller plants such as Woollsia pungens. The inflorescences are a feature of autumn bushwalking in sandstone areas, such as the Kings Tableland walk in the Blue Mountains, Jennifer Street Boardwalk in Little Bay, and Royal National Park.
The northern subspecies macrantha is found in two distinct regions on the far north coast of New South Wales; the first from Crowdy Bay on the Mid North Coast northwards to Hat Head National Park north of Port Macquarie, and then from Yuraygir National Park north to Kingscliff just south of the Queensland border. This variety is more strictly coastal with most populations being found within two kilometres of the coast, or in swampy areas. It may be associated with Banksia oblongifolia.
Ecology