Leucospermum hypophyllocarpodendron

Description

Leucospermum hypophyllocarpodendron is a creeping, mat-forming shrub with heads of yellow flowers and leathery, upright narrow leaves with some red-tipped teeth at their tips, from the family Proteaceae. It has long thin branches that originate from an underground rootstock and grows on poor, sandy soils in southwestern South Africa. The rose-scented flower heads can be found for August to January and are visited by different monkey beetles, bees and flies. It has two subspecies, one with greyish leaves U-shaped in cross section called grey snakestem pincushion in English and gruisslangbossie in Afrikaans, the other with green leaves that are flat in cross-section called green snakestem pincushion and groenslangbossie. Leucospermum hypophyllocarpodendron is a prostrate shrub (rarely rising up) of no more than 20 cm (7.9 in) high, with branches that spread out over the ground and form mats of ½–1½ m (1⅔–5 ft) in diameter. The branches originate from an underground rootstock. When the branches flower, they are 2–4 mm (0.079–0.157 in) in diameter and initially covered in fine grey crisped hairs, which wear off with age. Its leaves are upright, linear and U-shaped in cross section in one subspecies, narrowly lance-shaped with a narrow wedge-shaped foot in the other, 4–13 cm (1.6–5.1 in) long and up to 1½ cm (0.6 in) wide, and mostly with two to four thickened teeth that are tinged red, in one subspecies initially with soft, grey, crisped hairs, which may partially wear off when aging, or almost hairless and bright green from the start in the other.