AusTraits

Banksia elegans

Explore the data for this taxon in the portal

Family Proteaceae

Taxonomy: Banksia elegans Meisn.

Synonyms: 2 (APC 2026-07-30)
  • Banksia elegans Fraser Road form (A.C.Burns 27) (taxonomic synonym)
  • Sirmuellera elegans (Meisn.) Kuntze (nomenclatural synonym)

Distribution (APC): WA

Profiles: APC, Flora of Australia, ALA, iNaturalist, Florabase, ATRP

Traits

Top source datasets: ABRS_1981 (4), ABRS_2022 (3), ABRS_2023 (22), Burrows_2008_2 (4), Burrows_2020 (4), Chen_2017 (5), Collette_2021 (1), Enright_2014 (9), He_2011 (3), Jordan_2020 (7), Sjostrom_2006 (4), Sweedman_2006 (4), Tsakalos_2020 (20), Tsakalos_2022 (3), WAH_1998 (1), WAH_2022_2 (3), Wenk_2022 (2), Wenk_2023 (1), Wilson_2004 (2), Yang_2023 (7). See below for a full list of sources.
Summary: AusTraits contains 50 traits from 109 records in 20 datasets.

Traits by category (click to expand). For categorical traits, the values are listed. For numerical traits, the mean and range are shown.

fire response
flower morphology
  • sex_type (categorical): hermaphrodite (1) [sources: Sjostrom_2006]
fruit morphology
  • fruit_length (numerical): 22.5 mm (20-25 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
  • fruit_width (numerical): 12.5 mm (11-14 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
  • fruit_height (numerical): 11 mm (9-13 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
  • fruit_type (categorical): follicle (3) [sources: ABRS_2023; Chen_2017; Sjostrom_2006]
  • fruit_fleshiness (categorical): dry (3) [sources: Chen_2017; Sjostrom_2006; Tsakalos_2020]
  • fruit_dehiscence (categorical): dehiscent (2) [sources: Chen_2017; Sjostrom_2006]
leaf morphology
life history
  • photosynthetic_pathway (categorical): c3 (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
  • plant_growth_form (categorical): shrub (3) [sources: ABRS_2022; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • life_history (categorical): perennial (7) [sources: ABRS_2022; Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; Jordan_2020; Tsakalos_2020; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2023]
  • woodiness_detailed (categorical): woody (4) [sources: ABRS_2022; Tsakalos_2020; WAH_2022_2; Wenk_2022]
  • stem_growth_habit (categorical): erect (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
  • parasitic (categorical): not_parasitic (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2020]
  • flowering_time (categorical): nnnnnnnnnyyn (3); nnnnnnnyyynn (1) [sources: ABRS_1981; Chen_2017; Tsakalos_2020; WAH_1998]
  • seedbank_location (categorical): canopy_seedbank (2) [sources: Enright_2014; Yang_2023]
  • serotiny (categorical): serotinous (2) [sources: He_2011; Yang_2023]
  • seed_dormancy_class (categorical): non_dormant (1) [sources: Collette_2021]
  • vegetative_reproduction_ability (categorical): vegetative (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2022]
  • clonal_spread_mechanism (categorical): rhizome (1) [sources: Tsakalos_2022]
  • bud_bank_location (categorical): basal_buds (2); bud-bearing_root (3); epicormic_buds (1); rhizome_woody (1) [sources: Burrows_2008_2; Burrows_2020; He_2011; Tsakalos_2022; Yang_2023]
seed morphology
  • seed_length (numerical): 18.5 mm (17-20 mm) [sources: ABRS_2023]
  • seed_width (numerical): 8.5 mm (7-10 mm) [sources: ABRS_1981]
  • seed_shape (categorical): ovoid (1); polyhedral (1) [sources: ABRS_2023]
whole plant morphology

Sources

dataset_idn_traitsn_recordsreference
ABRS_20231522Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2023. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
Tsakalos_20201920J. L. Tsakalos, M. Renton, F. Riviera, E. J. Veneklaas, M. P. Dobrowolski, and L. Mucina. “Trait-based formal definition of plant functional types and functional communities in the multi-species and multi-traits context”. Ecological Complexity 40 (2019), p. 100787. doi: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2019.100787.
Enright_201439N. J. Enright, J. B. Fontaine, B. B. Lamont, B. P. Miller, and V. C. Westcott. “Resistance and resilience to changing climate and fire regime depend on plant functional traits”. Journal of Ecology 102 (2014), pp. 1572-1581. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12306.
Jordan_202077G. J. Jordan, R. J. Carpenter, B. R. Holland, N. J. Beeton, M. D. Woodhams, and T. J. Brodribb. “Links between environment and stomatal size through evolutionary time in Proteaceae”. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287.1919 (2020), p. 20192876. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2876.
Yang_202357S. Yang. “Unpublished data: Fire response traits scored from national and state floras and the taxonomic literature, University of New South Wales”. 2023.
Chen_201755Chen, S.-C., Cornwell, W., Z. H.-X., Moles, and A. T. “Plants show more flesh in the tropics: Variation in fruit type along latitudinal and climatic gradients.”. Ecography 40 (2017), pp. 531-538. doi: abs/10.1111/ecog.02010.
ABRS_198134B. A. Barlow, H. T. Clifford, A. S. George, and A. K. A. McCusker. Flora of Australia. 1981. url: http://www.environment.gov.au/biodiversity/abrs/online-resources/flora/main/.
Burrows_2008_244N. D. Burrows, G. Wardell-Johnson, and B. Ward. “Post-fire juvenile period of plants in south-west Australia forests and implications for fire management”. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 91 (2008), pp. 163-174. ISSN: 0035922X. url: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/19156 (visited on 03/27/2025).
Burrows_202044N. Burrows. Data from 'Plant Ecological Attributes' theme, NatureMap, DBCA, WA. 2020.
Sjostrom_200644A. Sjöström and C. L. Gross. “Life-history characters and phylogeny are correlated with extinction risk in the Australian angiosperms”. Journal of Biogeography 33.2 (2006), pp. 271-290. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2005.01393.x.
Sweedman_200624L. Sweedman and D. Merritt. Australian Seeds: A Guide to Their Collection, Identification, and Biology. CSIRO Publishing, 2006. ISBN: 9780643094079.
ABRS_202233Australian Biological Resources Study. Flora of Australia, Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: http://www.ausflora.org.au.
He_201133T. He, B. B. Lamont, and K. S. Downes. “Banksia born to burn”. New Phytologist 191.1 (2011), pp. 184-196. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03663.x.
Tsakalos_202233J. L. Tsakalos, G. Ottaviani, S. Chelli, A. Rea, S. Elder, M. P. Dobrowolski, and L. Mucina. “Plant clonality in a soil-impoverished open ecosystem: insights from southwest Australian shrublands”. Annals of Botany 130.7 (2022), pp. 981-990. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcac131.
WAH_2022_233Western Australian Herbarium. Florabase—the Western Australian Flora.. accessed on 14 September, 2022.. 2022. url: https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/.
Wenk_202222E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant growth forms dataset”. 2022.
Wilson_200422B. A. Wilson, J. Kuehs, L. E. Valentine, T. Sonneman, and K. M. Wolfe. “Guidelines for ecological burning regimes in Mediterranean ecosystems: a case study in Banksia woodlands in Western Australia”. Pacific Conservation Biology 20.1 (2014), p. 57. doi: 10.1071/pc140057.
Collette_202111J. C. Collette and M. K. J. Ooi. “Distribution of seed dormancy classes across a fire-prone continent: effects of rainfall seasonality and temperature”. Annals of Botany 127.5 (2021), pp. 613-620. doi: 10.1093/aob/mcaa203.
WAH_199811Western Australian Herbarium. FloraBase: The Western Australian flora. 1998. url: http://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au.
Wenk_202311E. Wenk. “Unpublished data: Australian plant life history dataset, University of New South Wales, Sydney”. 2023.