Banksia Species, Silver Banksia

Silver Banksia is one of the commonest banksias, growing throughout eastern Australia. It often remains as a low shrub, no more than 2 me...Read Moretres tall, but occasionally grows into a tall compact tree as much as 15 metres tall.
It is very attractive in flower, being covered in yellow compact flower heads. It is particularly attractive in that it flowers in the autumn, when little else is in flower.
It is extremely attractive to nectar feeding birds. I have one planted in my garden, which has grown to 3 metres and has not yet flowered, but they mostly flower much smaller than that.
They grow easily from seed and seed is usually easy to find as the cones (banksia men) are held on the shrubs for many years. The difficulty is extracting the seed. If a bush fire damages the shrub, the seed cones open readily and release their seed, but if one picks a ripe cone, it will stay tightly closed. The recommended technique to extract seed is to place them in a warm oven for half an hour and the cone will then usually open and let its seed free.