Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Grevillea robusta
Common name
Silky oak, Southern silky oak
Family
Proteaceae
Where found
Forest, gardens, roadsides, and along steams. Mainly Sydney area to Nowra. Occasionally elsewhere.
Naturally occurs in forest north of the Coffs Harbour district.
Notes
Introduced tree to 40 m high, often deciduous or partly deciduous. Bark grey to dark greyish brown, longitudinally fissured or ridged. Young stems densely hairy with rusty T-shaped hairs (needs a hand lens or a macro app on your phone/tablet to see), soon becoming hairless. Leaves alternating up the stems, 10–34 cm long, 90–150 mm wide, compound, with 11–31 leaflets; leaflets undivided or dissected or doubly dissected, ultimate segments 0.5–5 cm long, 2–10 mm wide, upper surface hairless and glossy green, lower surface exposed, pale green, silky. Flowers with 4 'petals' joined together in pairs, 'petals' yellow-orange or rarely reddish, hairless outside, hairless inside. Gynoecium 21–29 mm long; style yellow-orange or rarely reddish, hairless. Flower clusters pointing up, often branched, 12–16 cm long, one-sided, toothbrush like. Flowering: September–December.
In the absence of specific information, seeds of all species of Grevillea have been keyed as having one wing.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Grevillea~robusta (accessed 19 January, 2021)
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