Isopogon trilobus
species of plant
Isopogon trilobus, commonly known as barrel coneflower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to South Coast Western Australia. It is a shrub with wedge-shaped leaves with lobed or toothed margins, and oval, spherical or barrel-shaped heads of cream-coloured to yellow flowers.
Description
Isopogon trilobus grows as a shrub anywhere from 30 to 2 m (98.4 to 6.6 ft) in height. The new stems are pale to reddish brown, and initially covered with small fine hairs before becoming smooth. The leaves are 40–70 mm (1.6–2.8 in) long and have three to nine teeth or three to five lobes deep lobes, the teeth or lobes with a sharp point on the end. The flowers are arranged on the ends of branchlets in sessile, oval, spherical or barrel-shaped heads 25–30 mm (0.98–1.18 in) wide with hairy, broadly egg-shaped involucral bracts at the base. The flowers are silky-hairy, cream-coloured to yellow, and 8–10 mm (0.31–0.39 in) long. Flowering occurs from September to December and the fruit is a hairy oval nut, fused with others in a barrel-shaped head about 28 mm (1.1 in) in diameter.
Taxonomy
Isopogon trilobus was first formally described in 1810 by botanist Robert Brown in Transactions of the Linnean Society. Isopogon tripartitus R.Br., that Brown described in 1830 in the Supplementum to his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen, is now considered a synonym of the older name.
“Isopogon trilobus” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Isopogon, trilobus and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Isopogon trilobus” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Isopogon, trilobus and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6086251. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1810 and 1830.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Check terminology, classification and the date of the cited evidence. Scientific names and technical consensus can change while older records retain historical value.
- Current terminology
- Classification context
- Finding cited technical literature
Primary datasets, specimen catalogues, standards bodies and the most recent peer-reviewed literature.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Isopogon trilobus”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Isopogon trilobus primary sources, Isopogon trilobus archive and Isopogon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Isopogon trilobus”?
- Which observation, specimen, dataset or publication supports the account?
- Has classification or technical consensus changed since the cited source?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Isopogon trilobus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.