Banksia nobilis

Golden Dryandra
Plate 4633 of Curtis's Botanical Magazine by Walter Hood Fitch
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
Order:	Proteales
Family:	Proteaceae
Genus:	Banksia
Species:	B. nobilis
Binomial name
Banksia nobilis (Lindl.) A.R.Mast & K.R.Thiele
Synonyms
Dryandra nobilis Lindl.

Dryandra nobilis Lindl.

Banksia nobilis, commonly known as the golden dryandra, great dryandra or kerosene bush, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae which is endemic to Western Australia. It occurs on lateritic rises from Eneabba to Katanning in the state's Southwest Botanic Province. With large pinnatifid leaves with triangular lobes, and a golden or reddish pink inflorescence, it is a popular garden plant. It was known as Dryandra nobilis until 2007, when all Dryandra species were transferred to Banksia by Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele. There are two subspecies, B. nobilis subsp. nobilis and B. nobilis subsp. fragrans.

Banksia nobilis grows as a shrub up to four metres high. Its leaves are pinnatifid, with 14 to 32 triangular lobes on each side from eight to 22 centimetres long, five to 25 millimetres wide, on a petiole five to 15 millimetres long. Inflorescences occur on short lateral branchlets; this species bears a great many inflorescences, often carrying an inflorescence in almost every axil. Flowers are golden or reddish pink, with a greenish cream limb. After flowering, heads can bear up to 5 follicles each.

Specimens of B. nobilis were first collected in the 1830s by James Drummond from the vicinity of the Swan River Colony. The species was published under the name Dryandra nobilis by John Lindley in his 1840 A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony, where he referred to it as "a most splendid plant in the way of D. longifolia and tenuifolia, with leaves from a foot to a foot and half long". Lindley did not specify his type material, and there is no type at the University of Cambridge Herbarium, where most of Lindley's type specimens are lodged. However most of A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony is based upon the collections of Drummond, and one of Drummond's specimens has since been selected as lectotype for the species. Lindley also proffered no etymology for the specific epithet, but it is accepted that it comes from the Latin nobilis ("noble, imposing") in reference to the purportedly noble appearance of the plant.

...
Wikipedia