page_title: Banksia coccinea
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Banksia coccinea / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Banksia coccinea at Gull Rock National Park
context_page_description: Banksia coccinea, commonly known as the scarlet banksia, waratah banksia or Albany banksia, is an erect shrub or small tree in the family Proteaceae. Its distribution in the wild is along the south west coast of Western Australia, from Denmark to the Stokes National Park, and north to the Stirling Range, growing on white or grey sand in shrubland, heath or open woodland. Reaching up to 8 m in height, it is a single-stemmed plant that has oblong leaves, which are 3–9 cm long and 2–7 cm wide. The prominent red and white flower spikes appear mainly in the spring. As they age they develop small follicles that store seeds until opened by fire. Though widely occurring, it is highly sensitive to dieback and large populations of plants have succumbed to the disease.
  Collected and described by Robert Brown in the early 19th century, Banksia coccinea appears to be most closely related to Banksia speciosa and B. baxteri. Banksia coccinea plants are killed by bushfire, and regenerate from seed. The flowers attract nectar- and insect-feeding birds, particularly honeyeaters, and a variety of insects.
context_section_description: A field study conducted around Albany found the honey possum (Tarsipes rostratus) sometimes visit Banksia coccinea, as do the New Holland honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), white-cheeked honeyeater (P. nigra), and western spinebill (Acanthorhynchus superciliosus). Banksia coccinea flowers are visited by colletid bees Hylaeus alcyoneus and  H. sanguinipictus. The short-billed black cockatoo breaks off old cones with follicles to eat the seed, often doing so before the seed is ripe.
  B. coccinea is killed by fire and regenerates afterwards from seed released from burnt follicles. It has is some degree of serotiny, that is, it has an aerial seed bank in its canopy in the form of the follicles of the old flower spikes. However, numbers of seed are less than other co-occurring species of banksia on the southern plains and peak several years after a fire. Unusually for banksias, B. coccinea can release seed with resulting seedlings growing in the absence of a bushfire trigger. Plants flower and fruit three years after germination and are shorter-lived than other banksias, appearing in poor health or dying before 20 years of age. They hence appear to be suited to fire intervals of less than 20 years.
  Manipulating growing conditions on plants in cultivation showed that longer daylight (16 hours vs 8 hours) led to development of more flower spikes, indicating that flower initiation was related to day length.
  Extremely sensitive to dieback caused by Phytophthora cinnamomi, Banksia coccinea is an indicator species for the presence of the disease. There is no known means of eradicating dieback. Much of the Stirling Range National Park is infested, though Fitzgerald River National Park has been largely spared. Applying phosphite to infested areas has been shown to reduce the mortality rates to around 50%. B. coccinea has shown some symptoms of toxicity to application of phosphite, with some patchy necrosis of leaves, but the plant's uptake of the compound is somewhat lower compared with uptake by other shrub species. Unusually, the symptoms do not appear to be proportional to exposure levels.
  Dying stands of B. coccinea were observed in 1989, and the fungus Cryptodiaporthe melanocraspedia isolated as the cause in 1995. The disease, a form of aerial canker, manifested initially as dead dry brown leaves and the tips of new growth. Plants would die from the top downwards, with larger branches affected over time. Under the outer bark, orange and brown patches of necrosis spread out from leaf nodes until they encircle the stem, which then dies. Flower spikes may be affected during flowering season. In humid spells during warm weather, white or pink spore tendrils are produced on dead wood. One affected stand monitored over three years from October 1989 to June 1992 showed a 97% mortality of plants (compared with a baseline 40%). Investigators Bryan Shearer and colleagues isolated another virulent pathogen that they identified as a species of Zythiostroma, however it appeared to invoke an immune response in the plant. This immune response, coupled with the fact that it had not been observed in the wild, led them to believe it was not a major pathogen of the species. This species has since been reclassified and named as Luteocirrhus shearii.
  B. coccinea is a host for the gall midge Dasineura banksiae, a species of fly that attacks and lays eggs on the leaves between late October and early December. The round white hairy galls are 5–7 mm in diameter and generally contain one larva, or up to five on severely infested plants. The larvae moult and feed until January to March, when they reduce activity until early October. Although these are not harmful to the plant, they disfigure the cut foliage and hence reduce its value.
caption: Banksia coccinea at Gull Rock National Park
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