Dryandra subg. Hemiclidia is an obsolete plant taxon that encompassed material that is now included in Banksia

Banksia

Banksia is a genus of around 170 species in the plant family Proteaceae. These Australian wildflowers and popular garden plants are easily recognised by their characteristic flower spikes and fruiting "cones" and heads. When it comes to size, banksias range from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up...

. Published at genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 rank as Hemiclidia by Robert Brown

Robert Brown (botanist)

Robert Brown was a Scottish botanist and palaeobotanist who made important contributions to botany largely through his pioneering use of the microscope...

 in 1830, it was set aside by George Bentham

George Bentham

George Bentham CMG FRS was an English botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".- Formative years :...

 in 1870, but reinstated at subgenus rank by Alex George

Alex George

Alexander Segger George is a Western Australian botanist. He is the authority on the plant genera Banksia and Dryandra...

 in 1996. In 2007, all Dryandra

Dryandra

Banksia ser. Dryandra is a series of 94 species of shrub to small tree in the plant genus Banksia. It was considered a separate genus named Dryandra until early 2007, when it was merged into Banksia on the basis of extensive molecular and morphological evidence that Banksia was paraphyletic with...

 species were transferred into Banksia at series rank, and the infrageneric Dryandra taxa, including D. subg. Hemiclidia, were set aside.

According to Brown

In 1810, Robert Brown published the genus Dryandra in his On the Proteaceae of Jussieu. Thirteen species were published, including Dryandra falcata (now Banksia falcata

Banksia falcata

Banksia falcata, commonly known as Prickly Dryandra, is a shrub endemic to Western Australia. It was known as Dryandra falcata until 2007, when all Dryandra species were transferred to Banksia by Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele....

), but no infrageneric arrangement was proffered. Twenty years later, Brown published a further eleven species and the first infrageneric arrangement

Brown's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra

Robert Brown's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra was the first arrangement of what is now Banksia ser. Dryandra. His initial arrangement was published in 1810, and a further arrangement, including an infrageneric classification, followed in 1830...

 in his Supplementum primum prodromi florae Novae Hollandiae

Supplementum Primum Prodromi Florae Novae Hollandiae

Supplementum primum Prodromi florae Novae Hollandiae is an 1830 supplement to Robert Brown's Prodromus florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. It may be referred to by its standard botanical abbreviation Suppl. Prodr. Fl. Nov...

. By this time, Brown had observed the tendency in D. falcata for one of the two ovule

Ovule

Ovule means "small egg". In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: The integument forming its outer layer, the nucellus , and the megaspore-derived female gametophyte in its center...

s in each follicle

Follicle (fruit)

In botany, a follicle is a dry unilocular many-seeded fruit formed from one carpel and dehiscing by the ventral suture in order to release seeds, such as in larkspur, magnolia, banksia, peony and milkweed....

 to abort, thereafter developing into a winglike appendage to the seed separator. On this basis, he transferred the species into a monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 genus, which he named Hemiclidia, from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 hemi ("half") and perhaps kleidos ("barrier", "means of closing").

Hemiclidia was retained in the 1856 arrangement

Meissner's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra

Carl Meissner's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra, now Banksia ser. Dryandra, was published in 1856 as part of his chapter on the Proteaceae in A. P. de Candolle's Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis...

 of Carl Meissner

Carl Meissner

Carl Daniel Friedrich Meissner was a Swiss botanist.Born in Bern, Switzerland on 1 November 1800, he was christened Meisner but later changed the spelling of his name to Meissner. For most of his 40 year career he was Professor of Botany at University of Basel...

, but discarded by George Bentham

George Bentham

George Bentham CMG FRS was an English botanist, characterized by Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century".- Formative years :...

 in his 1870 revision

Bentham's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra

George Bentham's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra was published in 1870, in Volume 5 of Bentham's Flora Australiensis...

 of the genus. Bentham correctly observed that the abortion of seeds occurs in other Dryandra species, and is a diagnostically unimportant character:

According to George

In 1996, Alex George

Alex George

Alexander Segger George is a Western Australian botanist. He is the authority on the plant genera Banksia and Dryandra...

 published a thorough revision of Dryandra in preparation of his monograph on that genus for the Flora of Australia

Flora of Australia (series)

The Flora of Australia is a 59 volume series describing the vascular plants, bryophytes and lichens present in Australia and its external territories...

 series. He segregated D. falcata and the newly published D. glauca (now Banksia glaucifolia

Banksia glaucifolia

Banksia glaucifolia is a shrub endemic to Western Australia.It was known as Dryandra glauca until 2007, when all Dryandra species were transferred to Banksia by Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele. The name "Banksia glauca" had already been published in reference to Banksia integrifolia subsp...

) into a subgenus based on their unusual follicles, which are small, hairy and pliable. Needing a name for the subgenus, George noted that Hemiclidia was available, and had an appropriate type species

Type species

In biological nomenclature, a type species is both a concept and a practical system which is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals and plants. The value of a "type species" lies in the fact that it makes clear what is meant by a particular genus name. A type species is the species...

 in D. falcata. He therefore demoted Hemiclidia to subgenus rank as Dryandra subg. Hemiclidia (R.Br.) A.S.George. Its placement and circumscription in George's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra

George's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra

Alex George's taxonomic arrangement of Dryandra was the first modern-day arrangement of that taxon. First published in Nuytsia in 1996, it superseded the arrangement of George Bentham, which had stood for over a hundred years; it would later form the basis for George's 1999 treatment of Dryandra...

 may be summarised as follows:

Genus Dryandra (now Banksia ser. Dryandra)

Subgenus Dryandra

Dryandra subg. Dryandra

Dryandra subg. Dryandra is an obsolete series within the former genus Dryandra . It was first published at sectional rank as Dryandra verae in 1830, before being renamed Eudryandra in 1847, the replaced by the autonym at subgenus rank in 1996...

 (24 series, 91 species, 39 subspecies, 23 varieties)

Subgenus Hemiclidia

D. falcata (now Banksia falcata

Banksia falcata

Banksia falcata, commonly known as Prickly Dryandra, is a shrub endemic to Western Australia. It was known as Dryandra falcata until 2007, when all Dryandra species were transferred to Banksia by Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele....

)

D. glauca (now Banksia glaucifolia

Banksia glaucifolia

Banksia glaucifolia is a shrub endemic to Western Australia.It was known as Dryandra glauca until 2007, when all Dryandra species were transferred to Banksia by Austin Mast and Kevin Thiele. The name "Banksia glauca" had already been published in reference to Banksia integrifolia subsp...

)

Subgenus Diplophragma

Dryandra subg. Diplophragma

Dryandra subg. Diplophragma is an obsolete subgenus within the former genus Dryandra . It was first published by Robert Brown in 1830, but was discarded by George Bentham in 1870...

 (1 species)

This arrangement remained current until 2007, when Austin Mast

Austin Mast

Austin R. Mast is a research botanist. Born in 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000. He is currently an associate professor within the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University , and has been director of FSU's since August 2003.One of his...

 and Kevin Thiele

Kevin Thiele

Kevin R. Thiele is curator of the Western Australian Herbarium. His research interests include the systematics of the plant families Proteaceae, Rhamnaceae and Violaceae, and the conservation ecology of grassy woodland ecosystems...

 transferred Dryandra into Banksia. They were not yet ready, however, to tender an infrageneric arrangement encompassing Dryandra, so as an interim measure they transferred Dryandra into Banksia at series

Series (botany)

Series is a low-level taxonomic rank below that of section but above that of species.In botany, a series is a subdivision of a genus...

rank. This minimised the nomenclatural disruption of the transfer, but also caused George's rich infrageneric arrangement to be set aside. Thus under the interim arrangements implemented by Mast and Thiele, D. subg. Hemiclidia has been set aside.