Redelinghuys pincushion

Description

Leucospermum arenarium is a lax, evergreen shrub, with arching and drooping branches, that has been assigned to the family Proteaceae. It has loosely spaced, upright, greyish, narrowly egg-shaped to line-shaped leaves, mostly without teeth and flattened globe-shaped flower heads of 5–7 cm (2–2¾ in) across, consisting of mostly creamy, seldom yellow flowers, that curve in the bud to the center of the head. From the center of the flowers emerge curved styles that jointly give the impression of a pincushion. The common name in English is Redelinghuys pincushion.It only occurs in a very small area in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It flowers between July and October. Unlike in related species the flowers are pollinated by hairy-footed gerbils and striped field mice. Leucospermum arenarium is a low spreading shrub of up to ¾ (2½ ft) high and 1–1½ m (3–5 ft) in diameter, that grows from a single trunk at its base of 4–5 cm (1½–2 in) thick, covered with a smooth grey bark. The flowering stems are lax, arching and drooping to the ground, sometimes even trailing. The leaves on the flowering stems are loosely spaced, upright, narrowly egg-shaped to line-shaped, 6–8 cm (2½–3¼ in) long and about 7 mm (¼ in) wide, mostly with an entire margin, rarely with two or three teeth near the tip, the base slightly wedge-shaped and twisted, greyish due to a dense layer of fine crisped hairs. The flower heads are flattened globe-shaped, 5–7 cm (2–2¾ in) in diameter, mostly individually set but sometimes grouped in pairs at the end of the drooping branches, each on a very short or short stalk of up to 4 cm long. The common base of the flowers in the same head is flattened, wide cone-shaped, both about 1½ cm (0.6 in) long and wide. The bracts that subtend the head are carmine-red in colour, oval with a pointy, sometimes slightly hooked tip, 8–10 mm (0.32-0.40 in) long and about 6 mm (0.24 in) wide, papery inconsistency, covered in very fine powdery hairs, which can be lost with age, and the edges set with a regular row of straight equal hairs.