May 13 - 19, 2012: Issue 58
Happy Mothers Day to all Mums !
All Images by A.J.Guesdon, 2012. Copyright AJGuesdon, 2012. All Rights Resreved
Above: Pink Mink Protea, flowering in Pittwater this week.
Proteaceae is a family of flowering plants distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises about 80 genera with about 1600species. Proteaceae are mainly a southern hemisphere family, with its main centres of diversity in Australia and South Africa. Well known genera include Protea, Banksia, Embothrium, Grevillea, Hakea, Dryandra and Macadamia. Species such as the New South Wales Waratah (Telopea speciosissima), King Protea (Protea cynaroides), and various species of Banksia, Grevillea, and Leucadendron are popular cut flowers, while the nuts of Macadamia integrifolia are widely commercially grown and consumed. Proteaceae are mainly a southern hemisphere family, with its main centres of diversity in Australia and South Africa. It is a good example of a Gondwanan family, with taxa occurring on virtually every land mass considered a remnant of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana. The family and sub-families are thought to have diversified well before the fragmentation of Gondwana, implying that all of them are well over 90 million years old.
Proteaceae. (2012, April 21). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proteaceae&oldid=488533254