Banksia integrifolia
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
banksia
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Flower colours
Green, Yellow
Detailed description
Large shrub or small tree to about 10 m high. Leaves narrowly elliptic with densely serrate margins. Deep shining green above and white beneath. Inflorescence mostly 9-12 cm long, erect, forming a broadly cylindrical cone, pale green or pale greenish yellow. Fruiting cone woody, with brown felty indumentum persisting in lower part, valves opening widely to expose seed. Cones may persist on the tree a long time after flowering.
Similar taxa
Banksia species are quite distinctive within the Proteaceae, as the flower spikes consist of hundreds of tubular flowers arranged in rows. There are several Banksia species in New Zealand, B. integrifolia can be identified by the yellow-greenish yellow inflorescences and the obovate leaves 4-10 cm long, woolly underneath.
Habitat
Terrestrial. Threat to well drained sites, e.g.. sand dunes.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Proteaceae
Ecology
Flowering
May, June, July
Year naturalised
1990
Origin
Australia (Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and northern Tasmania)
Reason for introduction
Horticultural.
Tolerances
Tolerant of a wide range of habitats and conditions from saline soils and estuaries, through dune field to subalpine tussock grassland
Life cycle and dispersal
Long-lived tree. Spreads by seed. Many seeds are produced, may require fire for mass germination. Dispersed by people, gravity, possibly expulsion during fire
Other information
Etymology
banksia: Named after Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS (24 February 1743 - 19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences.
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
BANINT