Featured Plant

When in flower, Isopogon formosus is quite eye catching. A member of the Proteaceae, this medium sized shrub is native to western Australia. The species was first published in 1810 by Robert Brown in a sweeping review of the Proteaceae. Brown, a Scottish botanist, collected extensively in Australia in the early 1800s with the assistance of Peter Good, who was tasked with collecting seeds for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Following this expedition, Brown described over 1000 species seen in western Australia alone. In this publication, he also described the genus Isopogon, which is endemic to the region.

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The name Isopogon translates to “equal beard”, referring to either the fringe of flowers or the hairs that surround the fruit. The specific epithet formosus means beautiful, and is quite fitting, given the purple inflorescences that appear on the plant throughout the spring. As with most members of the Proteaceae, what appear to be the flowers of the plant are actually pseudanthium. Pseudanthium, or composite flowers, look like one flower, but in fact are composed of hundreds of small individual flowers.