Hakea Invasions: uncovering the true identity of the Hakea species that became weeds outside Australia

Since mid-2020, some iNaturalist users and curators - notably @tonyrebelo and @arthur_chapman - have been reexamining the true identity of the Hakea species with terete leaves that became invasive, particularly in Portugal. Many information was scattered in hundreds of comments to particular observations, until this project was created: "Hakea Invasions".
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/hakea-invasions

The discussion is under way and we shall reach definitive answers. For that, we need detailed observations of as many populations as possible (a few plants from each population). Here is a description of what to measure and photograph:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/hakea-invasions/journal/53333-hakea-invasions-in-portugal-and-south-africa

@arthur_chapman kindly compiled several comparison charts for the two Hakea species with terete leaves that may occur in Portugal: Hakea sericea and Hakea decurrens. The document is available here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1367CE1j6kS6J4Obqsr5fDdgz2yW9-xgA/view

This project - "Hakea picante em Portugal" - has a much narrower purpose: to facilitate the search for observations of Hakea sericea/ Hakea decurrens in Portugal. Since there is no consensus about the true identity of those plants, the ID for most observations doesn't go beyond Genus level. By restricting the search to observations in this project, we are able to exclude the weed Hakea salicifolia (easily identified as such), leaving only the two "spiky" hakeas believed to exist in Portugal: Hakea sericea and/or Hakea decurrens.

Posted on July 6, 2021 09:43 PM by mferreira