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Leucospermum praemorsum
Also called Nardouw Fountain Pincushion, Nardouw Pincushion
A Western Cape shrub or small tree from the Protea family, grown mainly as a specimen plant in dry, sandy-soil gardens for its carmine pincushion flowers. It needs full sun, sharp drainage and very little water once established.
Leucospermum praemorsum is an evergreen shrub or small tree of up to 5 m (16 ft) high. It has hairless oblong to inverted lance-shaped leaves of 7–8 cm (2¾−3¼ in) long and 1½–2 cm (0.6−0.8 in) wide, tapering at their base to a stalk of up to 2 cm long, and cut-off at the tip with three to five teeth, and pale carmine, inverted cone-shaped flower heads. From the center of the flowers emerge long initially orange, later deep crimson styles that jointly give the impression of a pincushion. It is called Nardouw fountain-pincushion or Nardouw pincushion in English and Nardouwluisiesbos in Afrikaans. Flower heads can be found off and on throughout the year, particularly in older plants, with a peak between July and December. It is an endemic species that can only be found in part of the Western Cape province of South Africa.
The Nardouw fountain pincushion occurs from near the Lokenberg to the Gifberg in the Calvinia district, south to the plateau surrounding the Nardouwberg, near Wupperthal and the Biedouw Valley. Here the plants grow at 300–750 m (1000–2500 ft) altitude in dry circumstances in deep sandy soils that developed from Table Mountain Sandstone. Although the average annual precipitation across its distribution area is only 250–380 mm (10–15 in), mainly falling during the winter half year, it also benefits from the frequent mists that occur there. On the Nardouwberg plateau, the species occurs in large stands in a sparse vegetation that further consists of tufts of the large Restionid Willdenowia lucaeana and a few Leucadendron procerum shrubs, small annuals and geophytes. Due to the low biomass and the extensive areas of bare sand, wildfires are probably rare and superficial. Therefore, most Nardouw fountain pincushion specimens are old (50 to 80 years) and have grown into small trees, often over 5 m (15 ft) high, with a trunk of up to 30 cm (1 ft) across.
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 praemorsum 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.
