Kingdom Plantae Family Proteaceae Rank Species | Order Proteales Genus Leucospermum | |
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Similar Leucospermum muirii, Leucospermum tottum, Leucospermum oleifolium, Leucospermum cuneiforme, Leucospermum conocarpodendron | ||
Leucospermum hypophyllocarpodendron, the snake-stemmed pincushion, is a species of flowering plant in the family Proteaceae native to South Africa.
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Description
Leucospermum hypophyllocarpodendron is a prostrate or decumbent shrub, forming a "straggling carpet". Its upward-pointing leaves are narrow, lanceolate to channeled, 40–130 millimetres (1.6–5.1 in) long, and covered with a thick grey indumentum.
Taxonomy
The species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his 1753 work Species Plantarum, as Leucadendron hypophyllocarpodendron, one of the longest names in that work. Linnaeus transferred the species to Protea in his Mantissa Plantarum. When he erected the segregate genus Leucospermum in 1809, Robert Brown called the species Leucospermum hypophyllum; this is the type species of the genus Leucospermum. Under the current rules of plant nomenclature, the oldest specific epithet must be used; George Claridge Druce rectified this situation when he published the new combination Leucospermum hypophyllocarpodendron alongside dozens of similar cases in 1913.