Yellow glandflower facts for kids

The Adenanthos terminalis, also known as the gland flower or yellow gland flower, is a type of shrub that can grow up to one metre (about 3 feet) tall. It belongs to the Proteaceae plant family. You can find this plant in the southeastern parts of Australia, especially in South Australia and Victoria. It's the most common Adenanthos species found outside of Western Australia.

What Does the Gland Flower Look Like?

The gland flower grows as an upright shrub. It's usually about 1 m (3.3 ft) tall, but sometimes it can reach up to 2 m (6.6 ft). This plant doesn't have a special woody base called a lignotuber that helps some plants regrow after fire. Its branches stand up straight and are covered in tiny hairs that lie flat against the stem.

The leaves of the gland flower are quite unique. They are deeply cut into several thin, finger-like parts, usually five of them. Each part is about 5 and 15 mm (0.20 and 0.59 in) long and very narrow, like a thin line. These leaves often grow in bunches at the ends of the branches. Some leaves also stay on the main stem. The leaves on the stem usually don't have many hairs, and they are smaller than the leaves that grow near the flowers.

Flowers of the Gland Flower

Unlike many other Adenanthos plants, the gland flower doesn't always have just one flower. Its flowers can grow in groups of up to three! They are usually hidden by the leaves around them. Each flower has a part called a perianth, which is like the petals and sepals combined, and it can be up to 16 mm (0.63 in) long. There's also a long, thin part called a style, which can be up to 30 mm long.

The perianth is usually white or cream-coloured, sometimes with a bit of green. It has short hairs on the outside. The style is also almost always hairy. The part of the flower that holds the seeds, called the ovary, is very hairy too.

How Scientists Name and Group Plants (Taxonomy)

The first time scientists officially collected samples of the gland flower was in March 1802. A Scottish botanist named Robert Brown found them near Port Lincoln, South Australia. He later described and named the species Adenanthos terminalis in 1810. The name terminalis comes from a Latin word meaning "end," because the flowers grow at the ends of the branches.

Over the years, other scientists like Carl Meissner and George Bentham studied the gland flower and how it fits into the Adenanthos group. They helped organize the different types of Adenanthos plants into sections. Today, the gland flower is placed in a group called A. sect. Adenanthos.

In 1978, Ernest Charles Nelson further refined how these plants are grouped. He noticed that the gland flower can look a bit different from one plant to another, especially how hairy its leaves are. This is why some earlier ideas about different types of gland flowers were later changed.

Who Visits the Gland Flower? (Ecology)

In 1977, a study in South Australia looked at which birds visited the gland flower. Scientists wanted to see if honeyeaters helped pollinate the flowers. They found that several types of honeyeaters regularly visited A. terminalis flowers, including:

• Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris (Eastern spinebill)
• Anthochaera chrysoptera (Little wattlebird)
• Phylidonyris pyrrhoptera (Crescent honeyeater)
• Phylidonyris novaehollandiae (New Holland honeyeater)
• Gliciphila melanops (Tawny-crowned honeyeater)

Scientists found pollen from the gland flower on the faces of most of these birds, showing that the birds help spread the pollen from flower to flower. This is how the plants reproduce!

Unfortunately, the gland flower can get sick from a plant disease called Phytophthora cinnamomi dieback.

Where Does the Gland Flower Grow? (Distribution and Habitat)

The gland flower grows in the southern parts of Australia. You can find it from the Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island in South Australia, all the way to the Big and Little deserts in Victoria. The furthest east it grows is at Wyperfeld National Park. This makes it the Adenanthos species that grows the furthest east.

It likes to grow in deep, sandy soils, or sometimes in reddish-brown soils called lateritic soils. It often grows among mallee scrub, which is a type of bushland with many-stemmed eucalyptus trees.