Petrophile circinata
Petrophile circinata is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to southwestern Western Australia. It is a low, spreading shrub with pinnately-divided, sharply-pointed leaves, and more or less spherical heads of hairy, white, yellow or cream-coloured flowers. Description. "Petrophile circinata" is a spreading, ground-hugging shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hairy young branchlets. The leaves are long on a petiole about long. They are pinnately-divided to the midrib with sharply-pointed pinnae long. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branchlets in sessile , more or less spherical heads about in diameter, with many leathery involucral bracts often more than long at the base. The flowers are about long, white, yellow or cream-coloured and hairy. Flowering occurs from June to November and the fruit is a nut, fused with others in a more or less spherical head about in diameter. Taxonomy. "Petrophile circinata" was first formally described in 1855 by Carl Meissner in "Hooker's Journal of Botany and Kew Garden Miscellany" from an unpublished description by Richard Kippist. The type specimens were collected by James Drummond. The specific epithet ("circinata") means "rounded . Distribution and habitat. This petrophile grows in low shrubland, scrub and heath between Pingelly, Boorabbin, Lake Grace and Lake King in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie, Esperance Plains, Jarrah Forest and Mallee biogeographic regions of southwestern Western Australia. Conservation status. Petrophile circinata" is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife.