PAT Ei avele 
LEUCOSPERMUM CONOCARPUM, PROTEA SPECIOSA AND 
PROTEA LEPIDODENDRON. 
Tue flowers of three shrubs of the family Proteacee, two of them belonging to the genus 
Protea, and one to Leucospermum, are here represented. 
Leucospermum conocarpum is frequently found in the natural shrubberies at the Cape, where it is 
often intermingled with the Protea mellifera (figured in Plate VII.) whole thickets being made up 
of these two species alone. The drawing of P. mellifera, exhibiting a large flowering branch, 
affords to the unfamiliar eye a very just conception of the general aspect of that lovely species ; 
and we may regret that its associate, our Leucospermum, has not found equal favour in the 
eyes of the talented and amiable designer of both pictures. For though the ramification and 
foliage of L. conocarpum are less attractive to the eye than those of P. mellifera, they are very 
characteristic of South African vegetation. By the colonists this shrub is called Kreupel-boom 
or the Cripple-tree, because its stems and branches have a twisted look, reminding the 
poetically disposed Dutch Boer of distorted and broken limbs. The shrub is about twelve feet 
high, branching from the base, all its branches curved, and frequently knotted; and the bark 
is rough and uncouth. The lower half of the branches is bare of leaves, the upper well clothed 
with them; and most of the younger branches end in a golden cone of honeyed flowers : — 
so that the unsightly Cripple-tree is not without its day of beauty. There are several other 
kinds of Leucospermum, all of which have flowers of similar appearance; but there is much 
dissimilarity among the shrubs themselves. Some are bushy, like our Cripple; others rise with 
straight and slender, rod-like stems, but slightly branched; and others, again, of humble growth, 
trail their branches along the ground. The leaves in almost all are hairy, with a few blunt, 
callous teeth near the tip. 
The central flower in our plate is Protea speciosa, and that on the right hand P. Lepidodendron. 
The first is a spreading, flat-topped shrub with a stout, arborescent stem dividing upwards into 
a great number of branches; the latter, a more slender and much more erect shrub, with a habit 
similar to that of P. mellifera. Both ave common on the hills in the neighbourhood of Capetown, 
* growing among bare rocks, or starting out of the arid soil, but neither form natural shrubberies. 
In both the inner scales of the involucre are bearded with soft hairs, but this is specially the 
case with P. Lepidodendron, where the fur is copious and of a rich blackish brown, converting 
the tip of each scale into a soft brash. Though the colours of the involucres are not so 
brilliant as in P. mellifera, their coat of glossy, silken hair compensates for the want of a gayer 
clothing ; and both these shrubs rank among the nobler forms of the genus Protea. 
Most visitors to the Cape, who pay any attention to plants, notice the absence of mosses and 
lichens on the trunks of the Proteacex. It is quite true that the dry climate of S. Africa is 
eminently unfavourable to the growth of such plants, and they are consequently much less 
abundant than in our moister climate. But though less abundant, mosses and lichens are not 
