The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Leucospermum muirii
Also called Baby Pincushion, Calypso Gold, Muir's Pincushion, Small Pincushion
Albertinia pincushion is a rounded, upright evergreen shrub of about 1.5 m with pale yellow pincushion-like flower heads from July to October. It needs full sun, excellent drainage and acid, sandy soil, as it grows naturally on deep white sands.
Leucospermum muirii is a rounded, upright, evergreen shrub of about 1+1⁄2 m (4.9 ft) high, with a single trunk at its base, that is assigned to the Proteaceae. The flowering branches are 2–3 mm (0.079–0.118 in) thick and are initially grey due to a covering of fine crinkly hairs, which are soon lost. The very narrow spade-shaped leaves of about 5 cm (2.0 in) long and 3⁄4 cm (0.30 in) wide carry three to seven teeth, and also quickly lose their soft layer of hairs. Its smallish globe-shaped flower heads of 2–3 cm (0.79–1.18 in) in diameter occur with one to four together, each on a stalk of 1–2 cm (0.39–0.79 in) long. It has pale to greenish yellow flowers, becoming orange with age, with some long hairs near their tips, from which straight styles stick out. This gives the flower head the likeness of a pincushion. It flowers from July till October and is pollinated by birds.
Leucospermum muirii is an endemic species restricted to the Albertinia plateau a few miles east and west of Albertinia village and from there to the coast in the south between Still Bay and Gouritsmond at altitudes varying between 90 and 250 m (300 and 820 ft). The Albertinia pincushion only grows in flats consisting of deep, white sands, where it may form small dense stands, in the company of several Ericaceae, tall Restionaceae, Leucadendron galpinii, Leucospermum praecox and Protea repens. It is pollinated by birds. The seeds need about two months to ripen and subsequently fall to the ground, to be collected by ants and carried into their underground nests. The plants die when exposed to one of the wildfires that naturally occurs in the fynbos where this plant grows, but the stored seeds will subsequently germinate to continuate the population.
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 muirii 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.
