Banksia nivea

A ground-covering small shrub-banksia from WA, found naturally in the south-west of WA, from Geraldton, extending south and east through Perth, Albany and Esperance. It is typically found on sandy soils in Jarrah Forests and woodlands and other sandy habitats.

The leaves are alternate to clustered in pseudo-whorls, to 45 cm long and to 1 cm wide, with regular teeth along the entire margin, and dark green and white underneath. The foliage can create a bun-like shape at ground level.

The inflorescences of banksias are generally referred to as spikes or a spike-like structure which consists of fused racemes of paired flowers (hence it gets referred to as a conflorescence). There can be 100s of flowers in each spike. The flowers of banksias have 4 tepals (petals or sepals) in a tubular formation, 4 anthers hidden inside and an elongated carpel (female part) where the style and extends outwards forming the edge of the spike (somewhat similar to individual grevillea and hakea flowers).

In this species (which used to be in the genus Dryandra) the spikes are generally to 8 cm long and up to 6 cm wide, with each flower thin but up to 8 cm long, bright reddish-orange when developing, becoming cream when the flowers open. In this species, the flowers run more in a vertically orientation (up the spike) rather than perpendicularly as in other banksias.

The spike then turns into a cone-like structure of follicles; a fruit which splits open on one side. Each follicle has one or two winged seeds which is actually a fruit in itself called a samara. The follicles can take a long time to mature and open, usually needing a fire or a drying out period. Each “cone” can produce a fair amount of seed with this species having follicles to 12 mm long with up to 50 follicles per “cone”.