Conospermum mitchellii, commonly known as Victorian smokebush,[1] is a species of flowering plant of the family Proteaceae and is endemic to the western half of Victoria. It is an erect shrub with crowded, linear leaves, panicles of white, blue or lilac flowers and orange or reddish brown nuts.
Conospermum mitchellii is a multistemmed shrub that typically grows to a height of up to and has its branches covered with silky hairs. The leaves are crowded, linear, long, wide and erect. The flowers are arranged in panicles that are longer than the leaves, on a peduncle long with egg-shaped to lance-shaped bracteoles long and wide. The perianth is white, blue or lilac, forming a tube long. The upper lip is egg-shaped, long and wide, the lower lip joined for with narrowly oblong to oblong lobes long and wide. Flowering occurs from July to December, and the fruit is a hairy nut about long, wide, with a reddish brown base.[2]
Conospermum mitchellii was first formally described in 1856 by Carl Meissner in de Candolle's, Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, from a specimen collected during Thomas Mitchell's 1836 expedition.[3] [4]
Victorian smokebush grows in heath and heathy woodland on sandy soils in the Grampians National Park, Lower Glenelg National Park and near Anglesea, mostly in western Victoria.
