Banksia

By Director Lew Feldman

The UC Botanical Garden has a small but remarkable collection of Banksia species (12 of an estimated 183 different species), many of which are now flowering in the Garden’s Australasian Area. These plants are native to Australia and New Guinea where they range in size from prostrate shrubs to trees, up to 30 meters tall (100 ft). Nearly half of the Garden’s species are from New South Wales, collected as seeds by a former horticulturist.

The genus is named after Joseph Banks, an English naturalist (1743-1820) who was a member of Captain James Cook’s round-the-world voyage (1768-1771), and who, working with the botanist Daniel Solander, first collected this plant. In 1782 the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus honored Bank’s discovery with the name Banksia.

The flowers of Banksia are arranged into elongated heads or spikes which can be made up of hundreds or even thousands of tiny, individual flowers, which together give the impression of a rounded brush. The bottle brush analogy is made more real if you gently run your hand up and down one of the elongated flower heads, feeling the stiff, brush-like texture. (do so on your next visit to the Garden).