Conospermum

Conospermum is a genus of about 50 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae that are endemic to Australia. Members of the genus are known as smokebushes - from a distance, their wispy heads of blue or grey flowers resemble puffs of smoke. They have an unusual pollination method that sometimes leads to the death of visiting insects. They are found in all Australian states, though most occur only in Western Australia. Smokebushes are rarely cultivated, though the flowers of several Western Australian species are harvested for the cut flower industry.

Conospermum

Poyt448 Peter Woodard · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
ProteaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 33.9 Mya and 15.98 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Eocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceOligocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 1 occurrenceMiocene34–34 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–33 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–29 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27–27 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences26–26 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences24–24 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34.4 Mya15.5 Mya

1 occurrence of Conospermum on record, most of them in the Oligocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

1 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Yallourn — 38.22°S, 146.56°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Conospermum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Conospermum and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Conospermum and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

90 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Conospermum, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Conospermum

Credit
Poyt448 Peter Woodard
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Conospermum was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itProteaceae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Smith 1798