Leucospermum Reflexum is her real botanical name, but the rocket pincushion is apt enough. What a little beauty. Each flower is tube-like and made up of velvety floral parts called the perianth segments on which the anthers are placed. These surround the long style which escapes from the tube to form the ‘pin’ and the perianths then curl away from it. Young flowers are curved to start with, and then bend back toward the stem as they mature. The common name of rocket pincushion is very apt because these downward bent styles look like the fiery tail of a rocket trailing behind it. For the same reason, the Afrikaans name perdekop is a good one as the mature flower head looks like a horse’s head with its mane blowing back in the wind.

The name is derived from the Greek words leukos, white; and sperma, seed. The species names are derived from the Latin words reflexus, bent downwards/bent back on themselves, and luteus, yellow.

A German plant collector, Carl Friedrich Drège, first collected the common orange to crimson colour form of the species in 1830. It has since become a very popular garden and cut-flower plant.

It was only on the fourth attempt, in 1973, to find the yellow-flowered form after first hearing about it in 1970, that a tiny colony of Leucospermum reflexum var. luteum was discovered by John Winter, Curator of Kirstenbosch, together with other Kirstenbosch horticulturists and Dr John Rourke of the Compton Herbarium. They harvested some of the seed from these plants and got 13 seedlings to grow. From these they selected the best coloured plants for mother stock and the cuttings have produced the plants in cultivation today.

Proteas never cease to amaze me with their natural beauty and it’s clear to see why we at Haut Espoir are fanatical about them.

Have a great weekend out there, from the Team here, we wish you only the best.