Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Grevillea rosmarinifolia subsp. rosmarinifolia

Flowers and leaves. Photographer Don Wood, near Bombala

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer A McWhirter, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Feral shrub. Photographer Waltraud Pix, Friends of Mt Majura, Mt Ainslie, Canberra, ACT

Common name

Rosemary grevillea

Family

Proteaceae

Where found

Dry forest, woodland, grassland, roadsides, rocky slopes, moist areas, and along streams. Widespread. Rarely coastal. Nturalised inthe ACT.

Notes

Shrub to 2 m high. Leaf tips often sharp. Leaves alternating up the stems, 0.8–4 cm long, 0.7–3 mm wide; margins curved to rolled down, lower surface exposed and loosely hairy or rarely hairless, or mostly or wholly enclosed by the rolled down margins, and then 1-grooved. Flowers with 4 'petals' joined together in pairs, 'petals' pink to red, sometimes cream near the tips, wholly cream, yellow, green, or orange, hairless and sometimes glaucous outside, bearded inside. Gynoecium 15–22.5 mm long; style hairless or with scattered erect hairs, red to yellow. Flower clusters usually curved down. Flowers August–December.

In the absence of specific information, seeds of all species of Grevillea have been keyed as having one wing.

Environmental weed in suburban Canberra. Invades patches of native grassland. Takes over the shrub layer of open woodland. Occasionally hybridises with Grevillea arenaria. Hybridises with Grevillea juniperina subsp. fortis, particularly on Red Hill, Canberra. Hybridises with Grevillea lanigera.

Rare Vic.

PlantNET description:   http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=in&name=Grevillea~rosmarinifolia+subsp.~rosmarinifolia  (accessed 19 January, 2021)