Conospermum

Conospermum
Conospermum ericifolium
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
Order:	Proteales
Family:	Proteaceae
Genus:	Conospermum Sm.

Conospermum is a genus of about 50 species in the family Proteaceae that are endemic to Australia. Members of the genus are known as smokebushes - from a distance, their wispy heads of blue or grey flowers resemble puffs of smoke. They have an unusual pollination method that sometimes leads to the death of visiting insects. They are found in all Australian states, though most occur only in Western Australia. Smokebushes are rarely cultivated, though the flowers of several Western Australian species are harvested for the cut flower industry.

Conospermum species are shrubs or small trees ranging in height from 0.3 metres (1 ft) to 4 metres (10 ft). The leaves are usually simple, linear or egg-shaped and have margins without teeth. The flowers have both male and female parts, are arranged in heads or spikes of a few to many flowers and are white pink, blue, grey or cream-coloured. The fruit is a small nut usually with a fringe of hairs at its base.

The genus was first formally described by James Edward Smith in 1798 and the description was published in Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. The name (Conospermum) is from the Ancient Greek words (kônos) meaning "cone" and (spérma) meaning “seed" referring to the shape of the nut. Members of the genus are commonly known as smokebushes due to the grey flowers resembling smoke arising off the plant. The type species is the long leaf smokebush (C. longifolium), though Smith did not get around to describing it until 1806.

Australian botanists Lawrie Johnson and Barbara Briggs placed Conospermum in the subtribe Conosperminae along with the genus Synaphea in their 1975 monograph "On the Proteaceae: the evolution and classification of a southern family". Molecular evidence confirmed the two genera are each other's closest relatives.

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Wikipedia