Nelson's taxonomic arrangement of Adenanthos

First published in his 1978 Brunonia article "A taxonomic revision of the genus Adenanthos (Proteaceae)", it superseded the arrangement of George Bentham, which had stood for over a hundred years.

Endemic to southern Australia, they are evergreen woody shrubs with solitary flowers that are pollinated by birds and, if fertilised, develop into achenes.

[1] The first known botanical collection of Adenanthos was made by Archibald Menzies during the September 1791 visit of the Vancouver Expedition to King George Sound on the south coast of Western Australia.

The genus was given the name Adenanthos from the Greek αδην (aden-, "gland") and ανθοσz (-anthos, "flower"), in reference to the prominent nectaries.

That year, Bentham published a fourteenth species and the first infrageneric arrangement, dividing the genus into two taxonomic sections, A. sect.

[3] This arrangement stood for over a hundred years, by which time a number of new species had been discovered, rendering Bentham's treatment "very inadequate and incomplete".