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Leucospermum grandiflorum
Also called Great Flower Leucadendrum, Greyleaf Fountain Pincushion
Grey-leaf fountain pincushion is an evergreen shrub up to about 2.5 m tall, native to the Western Cape of South Africa, prized for its large pincushion-like flower heads. It needs full sun, very well-drained soil and dry conditions, and dislikes wet feet.
Leucospermum grandiflorum is an evergreen, upright shrub of up to 2½ m (7½ ft) high that is assigned to the family Proteaceae. It has elliptic, greyish green, softly hairy leaves and initially egg-shaped heads with yellow flowers, later flat with flowers turning orange. From the center of each flower emerges a long pale yellow style with a pink thickened tip (both later turning carmine) that is bent slightly clockwise, giving the entire head the appearance of a pincushion. Its flowers can be found between July and December. It is called grey-leaf fountain-pincushion or rainbow pincushion in English. L. grandiflorum is an endemic species that can only be found in nature in the Western Cape province of South Africa.
The grey-leaf fountain pincushion can be found in a vegetation type called Boland Granite Fynbos, in the hills around Durbanville, on Paarl mountain, on the Paardeberg near Malmesbury, Malmesbury, and a few isolated spots in the Berg River valley, where it threatened to go extinct in the 1970s. The species mostly grows on clayey soils produced by the weathering of Cape Granite, but occasionally occurs on Tertiary sand sitting on top of Malmesbury gravel. It prospers in hot, dry and exposed habitats, often in facing north, with other low shrubs such as renosterbos and kapokbossie at 80–500 m (250–1600 ft) altitude. The average annual precipitation in these regions is 380–635 mm (15–25 in), mostly during the winter half year, specifically May to August. On occasion, the night temperature may drop below 0 °C.
Redelinghuys Pincushion · Gordon's Bay Pincushion · Arid Pincushion · Catherine's Pincushion · Grey tree-pincushion · Heart Leaf Pincushion · Red pincushion-protea · Common Pincushion · Oudtshoorn Pincushion · Silver-leaf wheel pincushion · Potberg Pincushion · Soapstone Pincushion
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Leucospermum grandiflorum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
