Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Any of various Australian evergreen shrubs or trees of the genus Banksia, having narrow, spiny or toothed leaves, showy, dense clusters of usually yellow flowers, and small fruits in conelike clusters.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A genus of shrubs or trees, for the most part of small size, of the natural order Proteaceæ, natives of western extra-tropical Australia and Tasmania, where with other shrubs of the same order they constitute most of the so-called “scrub.” The foliage is hard and dry, and extremely variable in form, and the flowers form close cylindrical heads resembling bottle-brushes. Many species have been cultivated in European conservatories and gardens.
Wiktionary
- n. A plant belonging to the genus Banksia.
WordNet 3.0
- n. any shrub or tree of the genus Banksia having alternate leathery leaves apetalous yellow flowers often in showy heads and conelike fruit with winged seeds
Etymologies
- From the genus name Banksia. (Wiktionary)
- After Sir Joseph Banks. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The banksia is a paltry tree, about the size of an apple-tree in an English or French orchard, perfectly useless as timber, but affording an inexhaustible supply of firewood.”
“We had different kinds of encounters with four or five different types of treesome we gently brushed againstand then there was a more coercive meeting with a big banksia whose scaly, knobbly bark left a passage of black scales on the paper as if a huge reptile had passed over it.”
“Comprises seven main vegetation types: closed forest including rain forest and tall eucalypt forest dominated by satinay and brushwood; blackbutt forest; scribbly gum and wallum banksia communities; communities of wet sites often dominated by Melaleuca spp.; coastal communities; Callitris forest and woodlands; and mangrove and salt marsh.”
“The blackened remains of a banksia tree begins to sprout at the base of the trunk.”
“I am glad the banksia tree is sprouting and that you saw its new growth.”
“As the party drove on they stumbled upon a little native boy lying fast asleep beneath the shade of a magnificent banksia.”
“The windows of his new room were fitted with green venetians; round the verandah-posts twined respectively a banksia and a Japanese honey-suckle, which further damped the glare; while on the patch of buffalo-grass in front stood a spreading fig-tree, that leafed well and threw a fine shade.”
“This peculiarity has been remarked of other plants, besides the species of banksia.”
Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales
“A species of banksia was seen to-day under the same meridian as on the Macquarie.”
Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales
“She was looking down at the bindweed that had crept about the roots of a banksia rose she had once given the Pot”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘banksia’.
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Flora
fenugreek, verbena, saxifrage, arbutus, calendula, nasturtium, lobelia, hellebore, rhododendron, philodendron, bellflower, heuchera and 449 more...
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Peter Carey's Illywhacker
Culling my "Learned (or Encountered) in Reading" list. Thanks for the idea, yarb.
tinea, mingy, blanco, bitzer, mallee fowl, yabbies, coir, bluey, stoush, barney, currawong, providore and 43 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for banksia.
chained_bear "She could make perfect pictures: twisted white eucalypts at a corner of a white road near Cooma, bristling khaki banksias in the foot-burning sand at Coolum, Gymea lilies in the scrub around Dural, like burning weapons on long shafts placed defiantly to warn intruders."
—Peter Carey, Illywhacker, 527 Apr 18, 2009