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.
Mimetes saxatilis
Mimetes saxatilis, the limestone pagoda, is an evergreen, upright shrub of 1 to 2.25 m from the Cape Agulhas area of South Africa, where it grows only on limestone outcrops. It is endangered in the wild, so it is grown mainly by specialist collectors and botanic gardens rather than as a common garden plant.
Mimetes saxatilis or limestone pagoda is an evergreen, upright, rarely branching shrub of 1–2¼ m (3⅓–7¼ ft) high, assigned to the family Proteaceae. The approximately oval leaves are 3½–5 cm (1.4–2.0 in) long and 1½–3 cm (0.6–1.2 in) wide with a blunt, thickened, reddish tip or with three crowded teeth. It has cylinder-shaped inflorescences topped by a crest of green leaves, further consisting of heads with 12–22 individual bright yellow flowers, each in the axil of a flat, green leaf. It is an endemic species that is restricted to limestone outcrops in the Agulhas plains in the very south of the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is considered an endangered species. Flowering may occur between July and December, but is unreliable in its timing, dependent on sufficient moisture availability.
Mimetes saxatilis can be found in an approximately 100 km (63 mi) long, narrow strip along the south coast of about 3 km (2 mi) wide between Franskraal in the west and Struisbay, several km east of Cape Agulhas, and from there in a narrow strip inland to around Bredasdorp. It occurs from sea level to at most 180 m (590 ft). It only grows on limestone of the Alexandria Formation and derived alkaline soils. It seems to do best in sinkholes and crevices where the rock is bare. It grows together with other Proteacea that prefer limestone, including Leucospermum patersonii, Protea obtusifolia and Leucadendron meridianum.
Kogelberg Silver Bottlebrush · Silver Pagoda · Conical Pagoda · Golden pagoda · Common Pagoda · Fringed Bottlebrush · Marsh pagoda · Matchstick Pagoda · Cryptic Pagoda · Threeflower pagoda · Splendid Pagoda · Mace Pagoda
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Mimetes saxatilis 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.
