If you cast your eye over the Gardening Tips ‘n’ Ideas logo you will notice a flower on the left which resides in my garden – Grevillea ‘Austraflora Canterbury Gold’. It’s a fabulous shrub that took off in no time and flowers on cue at the end of every winter.

If you look closely at its leaves you will notice that they are an elongated oval shape much like the foliage you would find on an olive tree. And predominantly this is is what you would expect to find throughout the shrub – until now, that is.

It seems, for reasons that are unclear to me, that the leaves have been mutating. Some, like the one pictured in this post, have taken on a three-tongued look while a few others sport double forks. And there appears to be no logical rationale behind where they are located on the plant.

My first investigative step was to understand the origin of this plant. Not surprisingly it’s a hybrid, a blend of <em>G. juniperina</em> and <em>G. victoriae var.leptoneura</em> – Juniperina is the name given to plants due to their prickly, or needlelike, foliage . <em>G. juniperina</em> is a prostrate form with fine needles for foliage while <em>G. victoriae var.leptoneura</em> is a shrubby plant sporting similar leaves to my grevillea.

So, it makes sense that the hybrid could be throwing back some mutating leaves because its parent’s foliage was vastly different. While the hybridization of this plant has produced an amazing cultivar it certainly hasn’t been a perfect match.

Not that I’m at all worried about it though. I think it makes an interesting talking point when you can show off a plant with different leaves. Kind of like a circus with a bearded woman!