Adenanthos oreophilus
| Adenanthos oreophilus | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| Order: | Proteales |
| Family: | Proteaceae |
| Genus: | Adenanthos |
| Species: | A. oreophilus |
| Binomial name | |
|
Adenanthos oreophilus E.C.Nelson |
|
Adenanthos oreophilus, commonly known as Woollybush, is a species of tall shrub endemic to southwest Western Australia. It is closely related to the better known A. sericeus (Albany Woollybush), and was only classified as a species distinct from the latter in 1978 by Irish botanist E. Charles Nelson.
Adenanthos oreophilus grows as an erect shrub up to 2 m (7 ft) in height, with erect branches. It lacks a lignotuber. Like many Adenanthos species, its leaves are deeply divided into long, soft, slender laciniae, in this case trisegmented into three or five laciniae. The flowers are scarlet. The perianth tube is from 27 to 35 mm long, and the style around 40 mm.
This species is very similar in appearance to its close relative A. sericeus, having, in particular, almost identical flowers. However the leaves of A. sericea are divided into many more laciniae, which are thinner than those of A. oreophilus.
Botanical collections attributable to this species date back at least to the middle of the 19th century, but the taxon was long regarded merely as a form of A. sericeus. It was not until 1978 that Irish botanist E. Charles Nelson published it as a distinct species. He based his concept of the species on a specimen collected by him in 1973 from East Mount Barren in the Fitzgerald River National Park. He gave it the specific epithet oreophila from the Ancient Greek terms oreos ("mountain") and philos ("beloved"), in reference to the species occurrence only on mountain ranges.
Nelson followed George Bentham in dividing Adenanthos into two sections, placing A. oreophila into A. sect. Adenanthos because its perianth tube is fairly straight, and not swollen above the middle. He further divided the section into two subsections, with A. oreophila placed into A. subsect. Adenanthos for reasons including the length of its perianth. However Nelson discarded his own subsections in his 1995 treatment of Adenanthos for the Flora of Australia series of monographs. By this time, the ICBN had issued a ruling that all genera ending in -anthos must be treated as having masculine gender, so A. oreophila became A. oreophilus.
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