Tango

Leucospermum lineare x glabrum

Leucospermum (Pincushion, Pincushion Protea or Leucospermum) is a genus of about 50 species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, native to Zimbabwe and South Africa, where they occupy a variety of habitats, including scrub, forest, and mountain slopes.
They are evergreen shrubs (rarely small trees) growing to 0.5-5 m tall. The leaves are spirally arranged, tough and leathery, simple, linear to lanceolate, 2-12 cm long and 0.5-3 cm broad, with a serrated margin or serrated at the leaf apex only. The flowers are produced in dense inflorescences, which have large numbers of prominent styles, which inspires the name.

The genus is closely related in evolution and appearance to the Australian genus Banksia.
Protea - Tango (Laucospermum lineare x glabrum) Proteas are some of the most beautiful plants that occur in South Africa and there are many different varieties. We bought this one to go in the garden to hopefully attract sunbirds, but I fear the baboons may have other ideas! Geotagged,Leucospermum lineare x glabrum,South Africa,Tango,Winter,flowers,fynbos,plants,protea,south africa

Appearance

A tall growing variety which bears bright orange flowers in spring

Naming

The genus Protea was named in 1735 by Carl Linnaeus after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his form at will, because they have such a wide variety of forms. Linnaeus's genus was formed by merging a number of genera previously published by Herman Boerhaave, although precisely which of Boerhaave's genera were included in Linnaeus's Protea varied with each of Linnaeus's publications.

Distribution

Most protea occur south of the Limpopo River. However, Protea kilimanjaro is found in the chaparral zone of Mount Kenya National Park. 92% of the species occur only in the Cape Floristic Region, a narrow belt of mountainous coastal land from Clanwilliam to Grahamstown, South Africa. The extraordinary richness and diversity of species characteristic of the Cape Flora is thought to be caused in part by the diverse landscape where populations can become isolated from each other and in time develop into separate species.

Habitat

Fynbos

Reproduction

Seed dispersal

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leucospermum
Taxonomy
KingdomPlantae
DivisionAngiosperms
ClassEudicots
OrderProteales
FamilyProteaceae
GenusLeucospermum
SpeciesLeucospermum lineare x glabrum
Photographed in
South Africa