George Bentham's taxonomic arrangement ofAdenanthos was the first comprehensive taxonomic arrangement of thatplantgenus. It was published in 1870 in his landmarkflora ofAustralia,Flora Australiensis. It would stand for over a hundred years before being superseded bythe 1978 arrangement ofErnest Charles Nelson.
Adenanthos is a genus of around 30species in the plantfamilyProteaceae. Endemic to southernAustralia, they areevergreenwoodyshrubs with solitaryflowers that arepollinated bybirds and, iffertilised, develop intoachenes. They are not muchcultivated. Common names of species often include one of the termswoollybush,jugflower andstick-in-the-jug.[1]
The first known botanical collection ofAdenanthos was made byArchibald Menzies during the September 1791 visit of theVancouver Expedition toKing George Sound on the south coast ofWestern Australia. However this did not lead to publication of the genus.Jacques Labillardière collected specimens ofA. cuneatus from Esperance Bay the following year, and in 1803Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour collected the same two species as Menzies had 12 years earlier. Labillardière published the genus in 1805, in hisNovae Hollandiae Plantarum Specimen, based on the specimens collected by himself and Leschenault. The genus was given the nameAdenanthos from theGreek αδην (aden-, "gland") and ανθοσz (-anthos, "flower"), in reference to the prominentnectaries.[2] By 1870, 13 species had been published. That year, Bentham published the fifth volume of hisFlora Australiensis, in which was contained a treatment of the plant familyProteaceae, includingAdenanthos.[3]
In his treatment ofAdenanthos, Bentham published a fourteenth species, and the first infrageneric arrangement: he divided the genus into twotaxonomic sections,A. sect.Eurylaema andA. sect.Stenolaema, based on the shape of theperianth tube: members ofA. sect.Eurylaema have perianth tubes that are curved and swollen above the middle, whereas members ofA. sect.Stenolaena have perianth tubes that are straight and unswollen. The full arrangement is as follows:[3]
Bentham's arrangement stood for over a hundred years, by which time a number of new species had been discovered, rendering Bentham's treatment "very inadequate and incomplete".[2] His division of the genus into two sections based on perianth shape is still accepted today, but changes in the laws ofbotanical nomenclature mean thatA. sect.Stenolaema is now known asA. sect.Adenanthos, and all specific epithets now have masculine gender; for example, the species that Bentham referred to asAdenanthos barbigera is now namedAdenanthos barbiger.[4]