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 saxosum
Also called Escarpment Pincushion, Mardi Gras Orange
Leucospermum saxosum is an upright evergreen shrub of up to 2 m (6.6 ft) high that is assigned to the family Proteaceae. It has lance-shaped, leathery leaves and egg-shaped flower heads of about 5 cm (2.0 in) in diameter, with initially yellow-orange flowers, later turning crimson, from which long styles stick out, giving the flower head the appearance of a pincushion. It is called escarpment pincushion in English. It grows on quartzite soils in the mountains on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border and in eastern Transvaal.
The species is the only Leucospermum species that naturally occurs outside South Africa, although it is also present in Mpumalanga. It can be found at an elevation of 1200–2100 m (4000–7000 ft) in mountain grassland or shrubland with other sclerophyllous plants such as other Proteaceae. Across its range, the average annual rainfall is 1100–1500 mm (45–60 in), most of which falls during the summer, and regular mists occur. In the Eastern Highlands on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border it can be found on dry rocky slopes and on outcrops of Frontier Quartzite, and in Transvaal on the Wolkberg Quartzite that occurs in the eastern slopes of the northern Drakensberg Range. It flowers throughout the year, but mostly between September and December, and is pollinated by birds. The seeds are released from the heads after about two months and distributed by ants. It is very fire resistant because it regrows from its underground rootstock.
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 saxosum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
