Petrophile canescens
Petrophile canescens, commonly known as conesticks, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to eastern Australia. It is an erect shrub with pinnately-divided leaves and oval heads of hairy, white to pale cream-coloured flowers. Description. "Petrophile canescens" is an erect shrub that typically grows to a height of and has branchlets and leaves that have silky grey hairs when young. The leaves are cylindrical, long on a petiole long and pinnately divided, the undivided part longer than the divided part. The flowers are arranged in sessile, oval heads long, sometimes  in groups of up to four with hairy, triangular involucral bracts at the base. The flowers are long, white to pale cream-coloured and silky-hairy. Flowering occurs from September to January and the fruit is a nut, fused with others in an oval to spherical head long. This petrophile can be distinguished from the related "Petrophile pulchella" by its finely hairy new growth. Taxonomy. "Petrophile canescens" was first formally described in 1830 by Robert Brown from an unpublished description by Allan Cunningham. Brown's description was published in the "Supplementum" to his "Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van  Diemen". The specific epithet ("canescens") means "becoming or being somewhat white or hoary". Distribution and habitat. Conesticks grows in forest and sandy heath on the Blackdown Tableland in Queensland and south to Nerriga and as far west as Warialda in New South Wales.