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iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Proteaceae family

Kahiliflower Grevillea banksii

Kahiliflower is an introduced perennial tree, found in Hawaii. It grows to 1.3 ft.

More about this plant

Grevillea banksii, commonly known as Banks' grevillea, Byfield waratah, red flowered silky oak and dwarf silky oak, and in Hawaii as kāhili flower, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae and is endemic to Queensland. It is an erect shrub or slender tree with divided leaves with four to twelve narrow lobes, and creamy white to bright scarlet and yellow flowers. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Kahiliflower is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Mexican Tea
Native
Mexican Tea
Dysphania ambrosioides
●○○○○
Tropical Almond
Native
Tropical Almond
Terminalia catappa
●●●●●
Gaudichaud's Senna
Native
Gaudichaud's Senna
Senna gaudichaudii
●○○○○
Uhiuhi
Native
Uhiuhi
Caesalpinia kavaiensis
●●●●○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
1.3 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Evergreen broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host

Recorded feeding on Grevillea in North America, including:

Sabulodes caberata · geometer (inchworm) moth
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
✦ Bees 1 bee visitor

1 native & managed bee species is documented visiting Kahiliflower :

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 2 birds

Open records of who else uses Kahiliflower — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Recorded eaten by 2 birds species (fruit, seed, browse):

Calypte anna · Anna's Hummingbird Trichoglossus moluccanus · Rainbow Lorikeet
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (16) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — GloBI
[11] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[12] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[13] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[15] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[16] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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