Silver-leaf wheel-pincushion

Description

Leucospermum formosum is a large upright shrub of up to 3 m (10 ft) high, from the family Proteaceae. It grows from a single trunk and its branches are greyish felty. The softly felty leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, 6½–10 cm (2½–4 in) long and 14–20 mm (0.56–0.80 in) wide. The flower heads are flattened and about 15 cm (6 in) across, and consist of bright yellow flowers from which long, styles emerge which are strongly clockwise bent just below the white, later pink thickened tip. From above, the heads look like turning wheels. It is called silver-leaf wheel-pincushion in English. It flowers during September and October. It is an endemic species of the Western Cape province of South Africa. The Leucospermum formosum is a large upright shrub of up to 3 m (10 ft) high, growing from a single main trunk. The flowering branches are upright, up to 8 mm (0.32 in) thick, and are covered by both short, fine, dense cringy hairs interspersed with long upright hairs of 5–7 mm (0.2–0.3 in) long. The softly felty leaves are lance-shaped to elliptic, 6½–10 cm (2½–4 in) long and 14–20 mm (0.56–0.80 in) wide, seated or nearly so, set alternately at an upward angle and somewhat overlapping, in leaves of young plants entire, but later mostly with three deep teeth near the tip. The flower heads are disc-shaped, about 15 cm (6 in) in diameter, set on a stalk of 1–2 cm (0.4–0.8 in) long, are mostly set individually, but sometimes clustered with two or three together. When the flowers open, the styles grow rapidly, first breaking through the perianth claws and curve away from the center of the head, until the pollen presenter also ruptures the limbs at the top of the perianth. The common base has a pointy, narrow cone-shape, is 5–5½ cm (2.0–2.2 in) long and 1–1½ cm (0.4–0.6 in) across. The bracts subtending the flower head are pointy oval in shape, 1–1½ cm (0.4–0.6 in) long and about 7 mm (0.28 in) wide, tightly pressed against the common base and overlapping, thin and papery imbricate, the outer surface initially covered in powdery hairs that soon wear off, and with a regular row of equal length hairs along its edge.