Hakea chromatropa

Hakea chromatropa
Conservation status
Priority One — Poorly Known Taxa (DEC)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
Order:	Proteales
Family:	Proteaceae
Subfamily:	Grevilleoideae
Genus:	Hakea
Species:	Hakea chromatropa A.S.George & R.M.Barker

Hakea chromatropa is a species of shrub found in Southwest Australia. The distribution is restricted to an area around Wongan Hills, where it is found on gravelly loam in open shrubland. The flowers are white or creamy, becoming pink, and without a scent.

The flowering period is between July and the beginning of October, with mutable colouring in the flower as it ages; this characteristic is described by the specific epithet, chromatropa is derived from the Greek for 'colour' and 'a turning'. The habit of the plant is bushy, it lacks the lignotuber and corymbose arrangement of other hakea. The leaves are usually found to be serrated on the margin, one to five teeth or entire, giving a width between 8–20 mm. The length of the leaf is from 18 to 55 millimetres. They are ovoid in outline, concave, and markedly curved toward the narrower base of the leaf. The texture of the bark is finely cracked.

The species was first published in 2007 and placed with the hakeas of the Grevilleoideae subfamily of Proteaceae. The description was based on dried specimens and a 2006 collection of living material, the type locality of the latter is deliberately unspecified. It has been recorded in several localities in the Avon Wheatbelt and, in the adjacent northern section, the Jarrah Forest regions on the botanical province. Hakea chromatropa has an affinity with Hakea ilicifolia, found near the southwestern coast in the Esperance Plain region. The authors note that while new taxa in Hakea is anticipated to found in remote regions of Australia, this species is found in a region settled shortly after the founding of the Swan River Colony and near to the home of the notable collector James Drummond. Early specimens of fruiting material had been collected since 1969, but the new taxon was described from flowering specimens obtained in 2006.^[1]

Hakea chromatropa is listed on the Declared Rare and Priority Flora List as P1.^[2] The conservation status of some populations, occurring on private properties, has not been assessed. The same authors had published Hakea serrata in an earlier manuscript, which was attributed with the same conservation status, this is now regarded as a synonym.^[3]

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