George Bentham

“ A procumbent shrub spreading to 2 or 3 ft., the branches slender, silky-villous when young. Leaves divided into 3 to 5 filiform segments usually with a depressed lateral gland at the end, those of the branches often short and nearly glabrous, the floral leaves crowded, often 1 in. long, and ciliate with a few long fine glabrous hairs. Involucres 2 or more together in terminal clusters and nearly sessile, the bracts nearly glabrous. Perianth not above 1⁄2 in. long, villous with short spreading hairs, the laminæ glabrous inside or with very few hairs behind the anthers which are all perfect. ”

“ Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary or in racemes or spikes, often condensed into umbels heads or cones, each flower or pair of flowers subtended by a bract, very deciduous in some genera and perhaps sometimes really deficient, the pedicels always without bracteoles.
Proteaceæ, with their chief seat in Australia and South Africa, extend on the one hand to New Caledonia, the Indian Archipelago, and tropical Asia, chiefly eastern, to Japan, and on the other to South America. The seven tribes of the Order are all in Australia. ”

“ Ovary 1-celled, crowned by a tuft of gland-like hairs, with one laterally attached ovule. Style filiform, dilated at the end into an oblique disk, stigmatic on its upper surface which is turned towards the upper perianth-lobe and retained in that position by the membrane connecting it with the filament, the anterior margin of the disk often lobed or 2-horned. ”

“ In Eudryandra, as in Banksia, this outer integument, wing-like, detaches itself from the inner face of the seed, becomes or remains connate with the corresponding integument of the other seed, to the extent of the nucleus, the wing-like prolongations forming the two wings or lobes to the plate thus interposed between the ripe seeds, the wing-like prolongation of the outer integument on the outer face forming the simple wing to the seed. ”

“ In some specimens however some of the leaves show a few of these veins, especially when toothed there is often one entering into each tooth.
B. præmorsa, Dum. Cours., B. ferrea, Vent., and B. hypoleuca Hoffmsg., are names of garden plants which have been referred by Meissner and others to this species. B. marcescens, Bonpl. Jard. Malm. 116, t. 48, appears to me to represent the toothed-leaved state of B. marginata, and not the true B. marcescens, Br.
25. B. integrifolia, Linn. f. Suppl. 127. A tree attaining sometimes a considerable size, the young branches closely tomentose. ”

“ Perianth regular or nearly so, usually straight, the tube slender, the limb oblong or linear, the laminæ separating as the tube opens, or rarely remaining long coherent as in Banksia, and the limb thus sometimes reflexed before opening, the tube separating into the four claws to below the middle, the base of the tube remaining entire. Anthers narrow, sessile in the concave laminæ, the connective thick, usually very shortly produced beyond the cells. ”

“ If it should prove that these species, here arranged according to their apparent affinity with those whose seeds are known, have been misplaced, all practical utility in these sections will be lost, and some other principle of division must be sought for, although no good one has as yet suggested itself. ”