Banksia audax is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

 in the plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Banksia

Banksia

Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

. It occurs over a large area in the central south of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

.

Description

It is an openly branched lignotuber

Lignotuber

A lignotuber is a starchy swelling of the root crown possessed by some plants as a protection against destruction of the plant stem by fire. The crown contains buds from which new stems may sprout, and a sufficient store of nutrients to support a period of growth in the absence of...

ous shrub around one metre tall, with grey, fizzured bark. Leaves are wedge-shaped, 2–7 centimetres long, 8–22 millimetres wide, with triangular serrations along the margins. Flowers occur in Banksia's characteristic "flower spike", an inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

 made up of hundreds of pairs of flowers densely packed in a spiral around a woody axis. B. audaxs flower spike is golden orange, ovoid

Oval (geometry)

In technical drawing, an oval is a figure constructed from two pairs of arcs, with two different radii . The arcs are joined at a point, in which lines tangential to both joining arcs lie on the same line, thus making the joint smooth...

, around five centimetres in diameter.

Distribution and habitat

B. audax occurs from near the town of Southern Cross

Southern Cross, Western Australia

Southern Cross is a town in Western Australia, 371 kilometres east of Perth on the Great Eastern Highway. It was founded by gold prospectors in 1888, and gazetted in 1890. It is the major town and administrative centre of the Shire of Yilgarn...

, south almost to the coast. It occurs amongst heath

Heath (habitat)

A heath or heathland is a dwarf-shrub habitat found on mainly low quality acidic soils, characterised by open, low growing woody vegetation, often dominated by plants of the Ericaceae. There are some clear differences between heath and moorland...

 and in mallee

Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands

Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands is a Major Vegetation Group which occurs in semi-arid areas of southern Australia. The vegetation is dominated by mallee eucalypts which are rarely over 6 metres high...

 communities, in sandy yellow loam.

Taxonomy

B. audax was first discovered by Charles Gardner

Charles Gardner

Charles Austin Gardner was a Western Australian botanist.Born in Lancaster, England on 6 January 1896, he emigrated to Western Australia with his family in 1909....

 in 1926, and published by him in 1928. Gardner gave it the specific name "audax", meaning "bold" in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, in recognition of its "boldness" in growing so far inland. It belongs to subgenus Banksia

Banksia subg. Banksia

Banksia subg. Banksia is a valid botanic name for a subgenus of Banksia. As an autonym, it necessarily contains the type species of Banksia, B. serrata . Within this constraint, however, there have been various circumscriptions.-Banksia verae:B. subg...

, section Banksia

Banksia sect. Banksia

Banksia sect. Banksia is one of four sections of Banksia subgenus Banksia. It contains those species of subgenus Banksia with straight or sometimes curved but not hooked styles. These species all have cylindrical inflorescences and usually exhibit a bottom-up sequence of flower anthesis...

, series Cyrtostylis

Banksia ser. Cyrtostylis

Banksia ser. Cyrtostylis is a valid botanic name for a taxonomic series within the plant genus Banksia. First published at sectional rank by George Bentham in 1870, it was demoted to a series by Alex George in 1981. The name has had three circumscriptions.-According to Bentham:Bentham published B....

. It has no close relatives; B. benthamiana

Banksia benthamiana

Bentham's Banksia is a species of shrub or tree in the plant genus Banksia. It occurs in scattered populations in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, one near Mullewa and the other near Dalwallinu.-Description:...

 (Bentham's Banksia) and B. laevigata

Banksia laevigata

Banksia laevigata is a species of shrub in the plant genus Banksia. It occurs in Western Australia's semi-arid shrubland from Southern Cross south to the Fitzgerald River National Park. It is composed of two closely related subspecies, B. laevigata subsp. laevigata and B. laevigata...

(Tennis Ball Banksia) are taxonomically closest to it, but these are both larger shrubs without lignotubers.