Oval-leaf pincushion

Description

Leucospermum truncatulum is a slender, upright, evergreen, hardly branching shrub of up to 2 m (6 ft) high, with felty inverted egg-shaped to oval, leaves with entire margins of 1–2½ cm (0.4–1.0 in) long and ½–1 cm (0.2–0.4 in) wide. It has small globe-shaped, at first yellow, later pinkish flower heads of 1½–2 cm (0.6-0.8 in) in diameter, without a stalk, usually crowded with two to eight together near the end of the stems. It is known as oval-leaf pincushion in English, and patrysbos or kleinkopspeldekussing in Afrikaans. It is an endemic species of the south of the Western Cape province of South Africa, and flowers between August and December. The oval-leaf pincushion is a slender, stiffly upright and very sparsely branching evergreen shrublet mostly 1–1½ m, occasionally up to 2 m (6 ft) high, with a single basal stem. The flowering stems are slender, 3–4 mm (0.12–0.16 in) in diameter, densely set with soft hairs. The leaves are small for a Leucospermum species, rounded egg-shaped to oval with entire margins, 1–2½ cm (0.4–1.0 in) long and ½–1 cm (0.2–0.4 in) wide, densely overlapping, covered with fine silky hairs.