Persoonia volcanica

Persoonia volcanica
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Order:	Proteales
Family:	Proteaceae
Genus:	Persoonia
Species:	P. volcanica
Binomial name
Persoonia volcanica P.H.Weston & L.A.S.Johnson

Persoonia volcanica is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is an erect shrub with hairy young branchlets, egg-shaped to oblong leaves, and yellow flowers borne in groups of up to twenty on a rachis up to 180 mm (7.1 in) that usually continues to grow after flowering, each flower with a leaf at its base.

Description

Persoonia volcanica is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of 1.8–6 m (5 ft 11 in – 19 ft 8 in) and has smooth bark, and branchlets that are covered with greyish to rust-coloured hairs when young. The leaves are egg-shaped to elliptic or oblong, 20–90 mm (0.79–3.54 in) long and 3–10 mm (0.12–0.39 in) wide. The flowers are arranged in groups of up to twenty along a rachis up to 180 mm (7.1 in) long that continues to grow after flowering, each flower on a pedicel 1.5–10 mm (0.059–0.394 in) long, usually with a leaf at its base. The tepals are yellow and 9–13 mm (0.35–0.51 in) long. Flowering mainly occurs from December to February and the fruit is a green drupe.

Taxonomy and naming

Persoonia volcanica was first formally described in 1991 by Peter H. Weston and Lawrie Johnson from a specimen collected near Woodenbong in 1989 and the description was published in Telopea. The specific epithet (volcanica) is a reference to the substrate on which this species usually grows.

Distribution and habitat

This geebung grows in forest and the margins of rainforest on the McPherson Range on the New South Wales-Queensland border and disjunctly in Kroombit Tops National Park further north.