Hakea fraseri, the corkwood oak,[1] is a species of shrub or small tree in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to northern New South Wales. It has furrowed bark, pendulous foliage and creamy-white flowers in spring.
Hakea fraseri is a shrub or small tree growing to high with multiple stems, dark grey rough bark and does not form a lignotuber. The branchlets are a whitish colour, covered with flattened, soft hairs, new shoots glossy rusty coloured hairs over glossy white hairs. The leaves are simple, varying length with a weeping habit, long wide, more or less smooth and ending with hook. The inflorescence consists of 25-50 cream-white flowers borne in leaf axils on a stalk long that is covered with reddish-brown, short, matted hairs over whitish flattened hairs. The pedicel long, thickly covered with flattened hairs that extend onto the cream-white perianth when in bud, the pistil long. The fruit is narrowly egg-shaped, long, wide and a long obscure beak. Flowering occurs in spring.[1] [2]
This species was first formally described in 1830 by Robert Brown and the description was published in Supplementum primum prodromi florae Novae Hollandiae.[3] [4] The specific epithet (fraseri) honours Charles Fraser the first colonial botanist and Superintendent of the New South Wales botanic gardens.[5]
Corkwood oak is a rare species in New South Wales confined to the New England Tablelands below Wollomombi, Dangar, Tia and Apsley Falls on steep slopes and vertical rock situations in gorges.[2]